The JoePa Chronicles: Gary Barta Finds Out About The Director's Cup

by Adam Jacobi on Jun 9, 2008 8:11 PM CDT Comment 17 comments

RING
RING
AHEM
RING
This is Gary.
Hey, it's me.
Oh, shit.
Gary.
(falsetto) Gary's not here right now, he's in a meeting with a bunch of very important people like George Bush and Oprah
Stop it. We need to talk.
(falsetto) No habla the English?
STOP.
Fuck.
Look, I thought we knew that there wasn't going to be anything long-term between us. We just had a magical moment or two
just one
and that was going to be that. If my wife finds out abou
GARY
What?
I'm not going to tell your wife about anything. You think you're the only AD I've ever had awkward office sex with?
Should I come back later or something?
Tim?! Goddammit, why didn't you tell me we were on a conference call?
WHO IS THIS YAMMERING BUTTHOLE
How many people did you tell about us?!
Well, nobody, but you're doing an awfully good job of that yourself.
GARY, THIS IS MR. PATERNO, THANK YOU. PLEASE TELL ME SECRETARY WAS NOT AS UNTAMED IN THE TROUSERS AS CURLEY'S WIFE
This is neither the time nor the place for this

Can we get back to the topic at hand? The Director's Cup?
The what now?
It's a list of the best athletic departments in the NCAA by how they finished in every sport.
I see.
Penn State was #4!
Okay, big deal? Why should I care?
Oh, maybe because Iowa was dead last in the Big Ten.
Boom, bitch!
What?!
And it wasn't even close.
I'VE BEEN TOLD THAT THE LIST DOESN'T EVEN TAKE CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR INTO CONSIDERATION, WHICH I WHOLE-HEARTEDLY DISAPPROVE OF
ALL THEY NEED TO DO IS INCLUDE THAT AND WE WOULD BE 1-2 EVERY YEAR
THAT REMINDS ME, I NEED TO REMIND EVAN ROYSTER TO SEXUALLY ASSAULT A STOLEN HONDA ACCORD
So let me get this straight, Iowa is the worst at sports in the entire conference?
Don't worry, you still beat Iowa State.
Great, so we're not in the NCAA Special Olympics.
I struggle to think of a Special Olympics so sad that Iowa State would win anything in it.
So you guys really just called to brag because Iowa was punished for not fielding a women's lacrosse team or some shit?
Well, that and so you could tell Tim that we screwed in the copy room for 47 seconds.
My job is very stressful. It's been a while.
I bet.
THE DAY I IMAGINE SECRETARY HAVING SEX IS THE DAY THE LAST SHRED OF MY INNOCENCE DIES

0 recs | Comment 17 comments

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

Oh man

I keep waiting for this shit to get old. But it never does. Good stuff.

Mike
Black Shoe Diaries

by BSD on Jun 10, 2008 7:48 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

I just finished suggesting that the renewed PSU-PItt games would probably be a lot like Iowa-ISU, I forgot to take into consideration how much fun it is to make cheap jokes about your rival…although I don’t think the end of the actual games has stopped that at all, so nevermind.

Black Shoe Diaries

by Kevin HD on Jun 10, 2008 9:36 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Interesting. How is Iowa only 8 places higher than ISU, yet has twice the athletic budget?

by Bullfightsonacid on Jun 10, 2008 4:44 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Why's the interesting?

by storminspank on Jun 10, 2008 9:05 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

C ant type reual well/.///

I meant to ask why that is interesting, obviously… sorry about that.

by storminspank on Jun 10, 2008 9:06 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

check the numbers

It’s interesting because Iowa has one of the largest athletic budgets in this tier. Take four teams near Iowa on the scale; Miami (Ohio), Clemson, Virginia Tech, & Iowa State (the only ones I could find numbers for). Their average athletic budget is about $39 million. To contrast that, the Hawks budget is about $62 million. The Hawks are under performing on a massive scale.

http://www2.indystar.com/NCAA_financial_reports/revenue_stat/show

by Bullfightsonacid on Jun 10, 2008 10:08 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Um, no.

(1) The Director’s Cup is a flawed metric which rewards schools that field a number of different teams, especially in niche sports (Ohio State is near the top not because of its football and basketball success, but because it won a championship in fencing; Michigan scored more points in hockey than they did in football and basketball combined).

(2) Don’t get me started on their point system; according to them, Florida Atlantic and New Mexico were part of a massive tie for #26 (and get 45 points for it).

(3) Miami (Ohio) is 42 places behind Iowa. If that constitutes “the same tier,” then so does North Carolina at #8.

"Who gives a fuck about an oxford comma?"

by Hawkeye State on Jun 11, 2008 1:12 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

And considering

the trend for schools just to flat out drop low interest / revenue sports (whether due to title IX concerns or just flat out money issues, the cup is less and less relevant every year. If they actually want to use this as a metric, there needs to be some standarization to take into account the number of teams fielded by a school.

by chitownhawkeye on Jun 11, 2008 2:51 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Who is the hot secretary?

I think we went to different schools together.
And she carried my books home.
Fine-o-mite!

Robobubba has spoken!

by robobubba on Jun 10, 2008 11:34 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Yes?

Flawed metric? Football is the engine that drives all other sports. Iowa has a decent football stadium with a rabid fanbase; they should be able to fund competitive sports in other fields. Don’t tell me Ohio State cares more about fencing than Iowa.

And my bad, I misread Miami (Florida) as Miami (Ohio). Who would’ve guessed “the U” would ever sink into the 40’s. My point still stands Miami’s budget is $51 million, which raises the average of those four schools from $39 million to $41.5 million. Not a huge difference.

by Bullfightsonacid on Jun 11, 2008 2:52 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

They do

care more about fencing then we do. Hell, we can’t even field a NCAA hockey team.
Have we underperformed in football and baseketball, sure (b-ball not being a surprise, no one expected them to any good this year, but for the last couple of years). Does the average fan give a crap about any other sports, no. Even something like wrestling, which Iowa has been a traditional powerhouse, is something that the average fan couldn’t tell you anything about. Any sport that has a lower profile that that is likely to be ignored by the vast majority of students, much less alumni who live nowhere near the campus.
Maybe the B10 network will help raise the profiles of some of these sports, and maybe that will help. But probably not. And for the record, I don’t actually think the average aOSU fan cares about fencing either.

by chitownhawkeye on Jun 11, 2008 3:13 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Again, no.

Michigan, Ohio State, Minnesota, and Wisconsin field competitive hockey teams. Iowa has a club team that plays at the mall. That’s right, THE MALL.

That doesn’t even consider women’s hockey, which is played by about 3 DI schools and counts for the same amount of points as basketball (your national champs, Wisconsin, collected a full 100 points for that; again, our guys play in a mall).

Let’s take a look at Stanford, which won this thing by 400 points. They have great women’s sports programs. In fact, of their 1348 points, 830 were from women’s sports. Their women’s programs would have finished 8th in the whole damn thing. Iowa can’t do that.

USC scored 160 points in water polo, where Iowa – and most of the rest of the civilized world – doesn’t have teams. Penn State “earned” 200 points for winning both the men’s and women’s national championships in volleyball (in men’s volleyball, being sub-.500 has you on the verge of the top 15; Iowa has a women’s team…barely). Vanderbilt picked up a cool 55 points for finishing third in women’s bowling; that’s five more points than basketball teams that made to the round of 32 received. Army scored 90 points for finishing second in rifle (wait, Army finished second in rifle? Isn’t that sort of the job?), and your usual rifle suspects – Nebraska, Kentucky, West Virginia, TCU, Nevada – got loads of points merely for fielding a team in a “sport” nobody else cares about.

I don’t necessarily disagree that, given the resources at its disposal, Iowa should have some more success on the field, but the Director’s Cup is the last place I’m going to turn to determine just how much success we’re having.

Also, as a footnote, averages are easily manipulated. Add Iowa into that average (I’m going to assume your numbers are right, against my better judgment), and the average increases from $41.5M to “only” $45.6M. Again, not a huge difference.

"Who gives a fuck about an oxford comma?"

by Hawkeye State on Jun 11, 2008 10:42 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs