What's Jeff Tingey done that was so bad? He didn't even hire Zamberlin, Paul Bubb did. Tingey did extend his contract a couple years, but I think that he did that as a favor because Tingey scheduled us to play ASU and Oklahoma last year in order to get us out of debt and to build up the reserve fund a little.
Previous AD's that we hired, Irv Cross and Howard Gauthier, wouldn't even raise any money, whereas Tingey isn't afraid to get on the phone every day and make a lot of calls. He's got a good work ethic and has done a lot to manage the athletic dept. efficiently. Cross came here with all kinds of promises for nice facilities and corporate sponsors, etc., and he just went out and worked out all the time. Gauthier told ISU administration he didn't have time to raise any money, and subsequently was let go.
For some time we went through a revolving door of AD's, after Babe Caccia retired, and I think it's very important to have some stability at that position, and Tingey's from Pocatello and is glad to have the job. And Idaho had a lot of instability at that position before hiring Rob Spear. Furthermore, under Tingey's watch we've seen some nice improvements regarding facilities, including a new weight room, new locker rooms for FB, basketball, volleyball and soccer. Plus we'll be getting a new softball field soon as work is already being done on it, and soon we'll be getting a new artificial turf at a price of about $700,000 or so.
Tingey was the one that hired Seton Sobolewsky and Chad Teichert, and they both seem like they're doing a pretty good job here. And if Coach Z is let go in November, then I'm sure he'll hire someone here that's competent and will get us to be competitive with other league teams. My concern is that I wonder if we have enough money in the reserve fund to buy him out. BTW, does anybody here know why Larry Lewis was let go? I thought he did a pretty good job while he was here and it puzzles me as to why Bubb would let him go.
The only knock on Tingey is that he needs to be more approachable and go out and shake hands and shmooze with the boosters and fans, because he hasn't done a lot of that. Guys like Gauthier, Cross, Bubb and even Kelly Wiltbank seemed like they were good with people, and I could always walk up to them anytime and have nice conversations, whereas I have a more difficult time approaching Tingey. But I do like his dad pretty well and just saw him on Saturday when I was in town.
Frank, I'm jealous. I wanna meet her someday! I wish we had her on our soccer team this year, I really do. I thought the nation blew everything out of proportion last year with her and I hated how BYU seemed to encourage it to make them look like little angels.
