It appears Spence is going to stay at Clemson. To be honest, I could take him or leave him. I guess the best part of this entire situation is two fold. Stability has been created within the program, and it seems Spence has only good things to say about Clemson, his boss and his boss’s boss. I have to look a bit further into this and see that the administration is making the athletic department happy. More signs this program is heading in the right direction. Check out a few more details here.

Updated: Clem seems to have been bamboozled by TigerNet pranksters. A new low.

Just a tip for the future. When TDP announces something important, it shows up on ClemsonTigers.com. As an additional tip, anything that could possibly be construed as a scandal will be posted on a Friday.

Original post below:

Seems that way in wake of the tragedies from last year:

I am all for showing support for the Hokies but can someone explain how this is beneficial for anyone?

Apparently it is time for the yearly reporting of NCAA violations and other wrong doings. Now I expect that at some point or another an over-eager assistant in any given sport is likely to do something they shouldn’t. I belief these are considered Level II violations and result in silly punishments like letters of reprimand or a day or two off the recruiting trail (can you say more time to analyze tape and fill out paperwork). Half the time I am guessing they don’t realize their actions are against the rules until after the fact or someone tells them so. Anyway, we had a few of these but no sports were listed except the oft discussed (at least on this site) Women’s Rowing Team. Lueck’s “relief of duties” was mentioned after some preferential treatment including lodging was given by the coach to a student. Gee, I wonder who was involved. The article also mentioned the coach was let go a day prior to a match on Lake Hartwell and two weeks prior to the ACC’s. No additional details were spoken about and the new coach coming from Louisville was quoted, and I am paraphrasing, that the infractions were not to a degree that the program would lose stability. I would love to agree but only time will tell on that one. Nice media sound bite though as most probably have no clue what all is/was going on.

What irks me is this: One, the sidebar headline read “Ex-coach committed violations.” Now this was on the ESPNU College Sports (I assume this is the page for most of the non-revenue sports) that I linked just by hitting the “ESPNU” link at the top of the college football page. Now, I wasn’t differentiating the sport types at the time, but I was still surprised to see this. I figured this was the story but they spoke a lot about this and didn’t mention anything about names, teams, sports, etc on any of the other violations. As we all know ESPN is a huge outlet. Had I not gone back to reference the other stories on this page, I could have easily been pulled in thinking they had Danny Ford on something from 20 years ago, or something screwy going on with the basketball team. Either way a Clemson fan, or rival fan looking for a talking point would easily pick up on a headline like this and run with it. This wasn’t something on page 6 of 5 in the Anderson daily newspaper. I’ll be interested to see how the whole saga shakes out but now that the media attention is a bit more widespread. I’m wondering if the ripples (no pun intended) will build more into waves instead of fading out as I thought they were.

The athletic department has announced the hiring of Richard Ruggieri as the new head coach of the rowing team. Ruggieri comes from Louisville where he has been since 2000. His resume looks impressive. But let’s be honest. I don’t know jack about rowing so I really can’t evaluate his qualifications. Let’s just hope he isn’t batshit crazy.

The WIStv article hardly says anything about Ruggieri, but does bring up former coach Susie Lueck.

Lueck has not returned repeated phone calls or e-mails asking for comment and Ruggieri, who was briefed on the dismissal, did not want to talk about the details.

A request made by The Associated Press under the state’s open records law for documents related to Lueck’s firing returned only the coach’s latest contract.

She was fired and there was no paperwork? Can you do that? Any lawyers care to comment?

Sources: Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, I have spent the past three months looking forward to a 5 day weekend which I will spend with my Clemson family in anticipation and finally enjoyment of the opening game of the 2008 Clemson Tigers Football Season. The atmosphere will be electric the entire weekend and will culminate on a nationally televised game on a Monday night in which all of the Tiger nation is planning on attending in some way or form and performing a Mecca to Death Valley and the temporary “City” of Clemson. After that weekend, the administration has decided to place the next two home games, which occur in the middle of September, will also occur around the dead middle of the day: 1 o’clock. Have we not learned our lessons from UGA a few years back or the BC game from 2 years back or any other early games that the fans and team have endured? Have they not figured out that The Valley just doesn’t have the same energy and excitement at a noon or 1 game that it does even at a 3 or later game? Even CJ and James stated that in the most recent edition of “TigerTime” where they noted that the stadium is exciting for any game, but the night games just have that noticeable energy. I know that the 1 o’clock game is the long standing tradition of Clemson football, heck that’s why the paw is cocked at the position it is, but mother nature doesn’t play nice that early in the season. I also know that the noon and 1 games are supposed to accommodate the traveling Tiger fanbase (re: distant IPTAY $$$) so that they can drive in and get back home in one day. This decision was not factored by TV as in the past so this can be the only factor I can find. I, personally, would rather have the environment that is Death Valley at night (afternoon) with fans screaming at the top of their lungs to the point that they are dizzy than the blistering exhausted dehydrated fanbase that can’t even cheer because that may spend the energy they need to walk to the concession stands to buy more water. Later in the season, when it is cooler, sure go ahead and play some early games but please keep the early season games to a 3 PM or later date!

With the recently released review of the AARC, can we stop pretending that this about a “level playing field?” Can we admit that this is about giving coaches the option of recruiting at the level of the lowest common denominator?

It really frustrates me that Clemson fans, who I like to pretend are intelligent human beings, will actually argue on such weak footing. To create a truly level playing field, the Clemson fanbase would have to support such stupid things as:

• contributing money to all schools so they can build a stadium identical to Death Valley
• helping other schools establish student-athlete support systems like Vickery Hall
• setting a cap on volume created by fans in Death Valley
• fining Dabo Swinney for recruiting too well relative to other schools

Those are pretty stupid, right? Yup, just as stupid as saying that fixing the AARC problem is about giving us a level playing field.

In other words, “we want to create a completely level playing field, but only in the few spots where we don’t already have an advantage.”

Fortunately for Clemson, rowing is a sport that no one cares about. So, when the head coach got fired unexpectedly in the middle of the season last Friday, there was virtually no hubbub. There was small announcement. The few people who heard the news assumed there was a scandal. And that was it.

A Google news search doesn’t reveal any new articles, which explain why Lueck’s contract was terminated.

And today’s release of Current Issues with Dr. Phillips, doesn’t say a single thing about rowing. I guess since the firing occurred last week, it does not qualify as a “current issue.”

Clemson’s athletic dept. may be the dumbest in the land. After back to back poor showings on the field after noon kickoffs, it’s official:

The Clemson vs. South Carolina game will have a noon kick on Saturday, November 25 and will be televised either by ESPN or ESPN2.

Geeze, I don’t want to hear about the fans not liking the evening games or excuses about it being the holidays. Noon games SUCK!!! No one gets into it like an afternoon or evening game and everyone is still waking up by noon. If you want to know what the atmosphere in Death Valley will be like for that game see the Maryland game…..but worse!!