As I said, I don’t have a clue who the next AD will be. I’m not buying that Wannstedt will be looking to fill the role now or in the near future. Old names from the last search are brought up again.

Potential candidates could include Pitt’s last interim athletic director, Marc Boehm, now an executive associate athletic director at Nebraska, as well as three athletic directors who interviewed in ’03: Cincinnati’s Mike Thomas, Central Florida’s Keith Tribble and Florida Atlantic’s Craig Angelos.

Another notable name that has surfaced is Tom Donahoe, a former Steelers director of football operations and president/general manager of the Buffalo Bills. Donahoe received a personal guided tour by Wannstedt during a visit to Pitt’s Duratz Athletic Complex last month.

Not quite following why Donahoe would take a pay cut and prestige drop from the NFL, but let the rumors fly. As for Marc Boehm, returning if offered. I think that would be awkward.

Boehm is well-acquainted with Pitt, having been Steve Pederson’s right-hand man for six years before Pederson left for the athletic director’s job at Nebraska in late 2002. Boehm served as Pitt’s interim athletic director for 4¹/₂ months and was the top candidate to replace Pederson.

But with Nordenberg and the rest of the university administration preoccupied with the search for men’s and women’s basketball coaches — a process Boehm helped facilitate — Boehm grew weary of waiting for Nordenberg to hire him full-time and followed Pederson to Nebraska in May 2002 to accept a position Pederson created specifically for him.

Unbeknownst to Boehm until late in the process, the eight-person search committee had unanimously voted to name him as the successor to Pederson. Nordenberg asked Boehm to reconsider, but the chancellor never offered him a contract. That led to a hasty search by the committee that ended two weeks later when Nordenberg appointed Long as Pederson’s replacement.

Chancellor Nordenberg really does dawdle over these contracts for ADs, doesn’t he? I realize money and time can heal a lot of wounds, but Boehm coming back would seem uncomfortable. How much would he really feel he could trust Nordenberg to back him and not, ultimately, undermine him.

I also don’t by the revisionism that the school was “preoccupied” by the men’s and women’s coaching job vacancies to deal with the AD issue. The coaching vacancies came well after the AD vacancy.  In fact, part of why you have an AD is to lead the search for new coaches. The more I read that bit, the less sense it makes. Pitt’s men’s basketball coaching search had Skip Prosser at the top of the list and part of why he didn’t take it was that Pitt had no full-time AD and Nordenberg didn’t even assure Prosser that Boehm would be the guy.

That said, revisionism, doesn’t just apply to the time with Boehm. Long gets ripped on his way out the door.

Long’s biggest failure was his inability to maintain the season-ticket base for what should be the school’s flagship athletic program — football.

Pederson’s marketing initiatives led to the sale of 42,544 non-club season-tickets in 2003, a school record, and the establishment of a waiting list to buy season tickets for 2004.

Today, one literally cannot give away Pitt football tickets.

Puh-lease. At least rip on Long for things he actually did wrong. Heading into 2003, what had the season tickets sold-out was not any marketing initiatives, it was that Pitt was a preseason top-20 team that had the label of “darkhorse” Big East champion. A team that finished 2002 so strong, and looked poised to go farther. Instead, the season went to crap, the recruiting class was trashed and the head coach lost the majority of fan support.

Winning puts people in the stands, not “marketing initiatives.” Those only get their attention and might attract some first-timers.

Pitt is struggling with home attendance because the team isn’t that good and the home schedule is worse this year. Some of that is the weirdness of the Big East putting Louisville and West Virginia (and now Rutgers) all on the same home/away pace for Pitt so the Big East portion of the schedule is pitiful. The non-con  is distinctly bad as a consequence of balancing the road games to Michigan State and Virginia. That part you can pin on Long.
Smizik also goes after Long, for being a caretaker rather than dynamic.

His two most notable undertakings were the hiring of Dave Wannstedt as football coach and a fundraising campaign tied to season-ticket purchases for men’s basketball. Wannstedt, who also was enthusiastically endorsed by Chancellor Mark Nordenberg, remains a work in progress. He has been a disappointment thus far, but it’s too early to make any kind of final judgment. The fundraising program was a success but not before it enraged some fans and forced a lawsuit that, in effect, was won by the plaintiffs.

Under Long, the men’s basketball program continued to flourish and he was able to fend off schools, notably Arizona State, trying to hire coach Jamie Dixon. The women’s program grew significantly under coach Agnus Berenato, who, like Dixon, was at Pitt before Long. Pitt’s hosting of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament first- and second-round games last season was a major step for the program and that success came on Long’s watch.

Let’s be somewhat realistic. The football and basketball programs had already been revised and dragged into the modern world of college athletics. There was success occurring in those sports. Exactly how was the AD supposed to do more with those parts, other than just try to make sure they keep moving in the right direction and keep the money moving? You really want an AD to tinker with what was going in the right direction? Jeff Long had been focusing on the rest of the  athletic department that needed updated facilities, money and direction — which meant taking the hit for the fundraising by reseating for the Quest for Excellence.

College baseball is getting more attention each year. Pitt is finally on the way to having a modest ball field. Not to mention on-site facilities for the other sports to have practices and games — rather than going out into the burbs to high school fields.

Again, if you want to rip Long for being somewhat aloof, tin eared and actual sins committed that’s fine.  To essentially make crap up, bothers me.

So yeah. I’m tired of the Pitt-Penn State thing for this calendar year. Unless they actually draw up a contract, I think we’ve gone deep enough into the issue (especially in this post). Until anything is made official (probably shortly after Paterno is buried), we’ll get this type of thing.

Yesterday, Paterno was asked during his weekly news conference if he would be in favor of playing Pitt on a six-and-four basis — six home games for the Nittany Lions and four away — over a 10-year period.

I’m exhausted of talking about the Pitt-PSU subject, and I don’t think that Paterno is actually serious with what he says. All this does is deflect some of the criticism directed at him, and he even tries to pass it off as AD Tim Curley’s choice. They have a home and home series with Syracuse starting next year — if we’re so “inferior” to them, why do they go and schedule a series with a team that is similar if not worse than us. Scared we’ll pull an upset?

It might be time to shy away from recruits in upstate New York for a few years. There seems to be some bad karma or something going on with the kids from there.

Syracuse tight end Tom Ferron (Clyde-Savannah) and Michigan lineman Justin Schifano (Webster Schroeder) quit their respective teams. Pittsburgh receiver Derek Kinder (Albion) is out for the year with a torn ACL in his right knee, an injury that occurred Aug. 11 during a non-contact drill.

Now comes word that tailback Kevin Collier, Kinder’s Pitt teammate and Section V’s all-time leading rusher, also will miss the 2007 season after breaking his right wrist Thursday in the Panthers’ final preseason practice.

“I hate to use the word unusual or freak play, but we saw it on film,” Panthers coach Dave Wannstedt told reporters. “He fell on that wrist 10 times every day for the last month, and why this time it broke, I have no idea. So, we’ll use this as a redshirt year (for Collier).”

Add in McKenzie Mathews quitting last year along with the ongoing Greg Paulus ineptitude at Duke, and it just isn’t good times for those players right now.

“Pittsburgh Live” and now “Post-Gazette NOW.” Oy.

At least the Trib, finally figured out that no one cared or particularly like the whole “Live” thing. They’ve stuck with the URL, but “LIVE” longer appears anywhere on the site or in the web banner.

The whole “NOW” thing is just as stupid and should be dropped. It’s one of those moronic things where the marketing department sat around looking at the redesign thinking about how they can stress the newness and updates. One of them looks up from his box lunch at the conference table and says, “NOW!”

The new design isn’t bad. It’s clean, easy enough to read and the navigation seems simple enough. A little generic, but I’ll take generic and easy to use over visually stimulating and confusing. It is loading quite slow, however, and maybe that’s just an early glitch.

Steelers camp started, so Pirates season is over. Or at least we wish…

The Pirates’ Sept. 8 home game against the Chicago Cubs is being listed as a 3:55 p.m. nationally televised game for Fox on that network’s Web site.

Officially, though, the first pitch remains set for 7:05 p.m., as no one has informed the Pirates of a switch.

Although Fox has the right to shift a limited number of games for its national broadcasts, the Pirates can be expected to resist this one because the University of Pittsburgh has a noon football game against Grambling at noon that day at Heinz Field. That could wreak havoc not only with traffic but also with staffing, as the two North Shore stadiums employ many of the same service workers.

The first time I read that (from the P-G, by the way) I couldn’t get past the sentence, “a noon football game against Grambling at noon.” Once I made it through that though, I realized that if the Pirates are unable to get the time changed back to 7:05 then the entire date of the Pitt game could be in trouble.

I’m not certain how the decision works as to whether it will be kept at the time Fox wants or moved to a night game. Looking at the potential amount of room the Pirates have to make a case with, things don’t look too good: One of the worst records in the league (Cubs are fighting for the NL Central lead) and a TV market that is much smaller in comparison to Chicago.

You might remember that the start time of the Michigan State game last year had to be moved to noon because the Pirates have the parking lot priorities and lots need to be emptied 1.5 hours before the first pitch. With a 3:55 first pitch, lots need to be empty at 2:30, so we’d be looking at a 10:30 kickoff…or another Thursday night game.

To go along with the famous Grambling band coming to Pittsburgh, there is going to be a “Battle of the Marching Bands” at the Pete with high school bands from around the area. It is going to be held on September 7 — a Friday. As the message boarder says:

First of all, there aren’t going to be any decent high school marching bands at the event because THEY WILL ALL BE PERFORMING AT THEIR RESPECTIVE SCHOOLS’ FOOTBALL GAMES!!!!!!!!!

Perfect planning, as always.

He’ll get another chance — next year.

Fields has been suspended for the football season for violating team policy, Panthers coach Dave Wannstedt announced Tuesday.

“Although we have suspended Elijah for the season, he will remain part of our program and practice,” Wannstedt said in a statement. “We will continue to demand that he work hard on the field and in the classroom so that he can be an important part of our program’s future.”

Of course, that depends on Fields actually showing up and working. Something that it seems he has shown little commitment to actually doing.

He has some incredible talent. He flashed it in the spring where he missed a series of practices, had a brief suspension and still looked phenomenal in the Blue-Gold game. He doesn’t seem to care about the rest — academics, practice, conditioning, the future.
This suspension has been rumored all summer. Heck, Orson at EDSBS was probably hinting at it earlier yesterday (item #6).

Pitt seems to be all they can to help the kid. If he doesn’t want the help and the opportunity, though, there’s not much to be done.

I’m guessing Safety becomes a bigger priority in recruiting at this point.

The arrest of Joe Clermond for possession of marijuana is frustrating and mainly stupid. The fact is, I think Clermond will have to be suspended for at least two games. Mainly because his behavior was incredibly stupid, selfish and irresponsible.

On a personal/political level, I stand with former Pitt great Mark Stepnoski on legalization of marijuana. I find this offense  at the level of underage drinking or violating an open container law on my personal scale of where it ranks in offenses by college athletes. I’m not a big fan of the drug war and that’s the extent I’ll editorialize on the issue.

The fact is, though, that Clermond was arrested and charged with possession of less than 30 grams of marijuana. A minor misdemeanor punishable by up to  30 days and a $500 fine. The “good news” for Clermond is that the charges don’t include anything about paraphernalia — which is actually a more serious misdemeanor. He broke the law and was caught.

He’s also a scholarship player at Pitt representing the school and the football team. He was one of the players to go to Big East Media Days. An expected team captain and leader on the defense. He has dinged his own future — with a character flag.  In other words, he has to carry and behave as more than simply a college kid.

It might seem unfair to Clermond to be held to a higher standard, but it’s not like he was unaware of the way things are.

There’s a good chance the charges could be dropped if someone else takes the blame for the stuff. That doesn’t matter. Clermond was there with it present. He bears responsibility to the team, and I don’t see how Coach Wannstedt doesn’t suspend him for at least one game or two.

Buried in the news piece about the Big East basketball schedule was something that really bothered me.

The Duke game is tentatively Pitt’s only neutral-site game, but that could change as Pitt officials are working with Duquesne to get the annual City Game moved from the Palumbo Center to Mellon Arena.

If the two sides can reach an agreement on moving the game, it would mark the first time the game was played at a neutral site since 2001. That marked the end of a run of 12 consecutive City Games that were played at Mellon Arena.

Nooooo!!!!

I absolutely hated Pitt games at the Civic Arena. Horribly removed from the action. It literally sucked the life out of basketball games there. Now Pitt wants to bring that atmosphere back even for one game? Don’t they remember how lousy it was?
I get that playing at the Palumbo Center isn’t exactly lucrative for Pitt. That the small gym is cramped and doesn’t produce much revenue for Pitt. It’s good that the school hasn’t gone Penn State and canceled the game or even demanded a 2-for-1. This is just a bad idea.
The Civic Arena creates all sorts of annoyances and inconveniences. From having to figure out the re-accommodating of season ticket holders and the resentments it would cause when the seats suck because of the bad sight lines and detached feel. To the smaller turnout by the students.

Deep breath everyone. It may be a lousy logo replacing a lousy logo, but it is only a secondary logo. For example, that needed replacement of the 1997-era “Pittsburgh” logo and panther head in the Pete that was in the paper today. It’s not like it’s going to be with the new dino-cat. They will just have the block “PITT.” Right?

That’s because a giant tile logo that reads “Pittsburgh,” built at a cost of more than $100,000 into the main lobby floor of the Petersen Events Center, will be torn up and modified under an effort to put the “PITT” back in Pitt athletics.

Jeff Long, the school’s athletic director, yesterday confirmed the planned work this summer inside the 12,500-seat arena, which opened in 2002 and is home to the school’s basketball teams.

He said the Panther head inside the logo also will be updated to a newer, sleeker version announced last month.

Oh, wait. Crap.

It would have been fine with just the big block lettered logo. Clean, simple and uncomplicated. On the bright side, when you go into the Pete, you will at least be able to stomp on that dino-cat to get some of the frustration out of your system.

The Pitt Athletic Department has confirmed the new logo through a press release to the media, an e-mail to Panther Club members, and on the website.

The University of Pittsburgh’s torch-cut Panther head, first unveiled in 1997, is being reintroduced with a sleeker, more polished look. The new mark is the result of the creative efforts of the Pitt Athletic Department and Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC).

I called that they would use the word “sleeker”. By the way, we also know who to blame for coming up with this.

But wait, there’s more of this drivel…

The new Panther head will be a secondary mark for Pitt Athletics. The primary logo will remain the arching block-style PITT, first introduced in 2005. The PITT logo will continue to be the featured mark on the uniforms for each of the University of Pittsburgh’s 19 intercollegiate teams.

“We have been known as Pitt for more than a century and that name and logo will continue to be our primary identity,” Athletic Director Jeff Long said. “After receiving consistent public feedback, we felt the time was right to give our Panther head a more refined, contemporary look and one that is easily reproduced and recognized.”

Merchandise with the “sleeker” Panther will be available in stores beginning July 2. Those of you who can’t wait that long can shop on the Pitt online store which is carrying the new clothing as we speak.

Most people you ask will say any logo choice that the Pitt Athletic Department makes which doesn’t involve changing back to script is a wrong choice. Even if you don’t think that, I’m sure we can all join in saying this is about as bad as it gets.

What we have is a replacement of secondary logo including a “sleeker,” more “modern” look. Yeah, right. Expect to see both of those words in the press release.

Some are calling it “Dinocat 2.0,” others saying it looks like a harmless dog. The topic has six pages (and counting) on the message boards. Chas also wrote about it over at the FanHouse.

I’m moving across town, meaning less computer/blogging time until everything is complete (hopefully soon), and it makes the drive to Heinz Field only about 10 minutes longer. I don’t think this was ever considered as part of the new house:

They’re offered by York Heating and Air Conditioning and come in a variety of NCAA teams. Seriously, they’ll put a logo on anything if it squeezes some cash out of people. Better make sure you order your Furman Paladins air conditioner before they run out.

I look forward to this story in the next alumni e-mail.

A former defensive lineman for the Los Angeles Raiders and the Cleveland Browns pleaded guilty yesterday to helping his live-in girlfriend run a high-end prostitution ring out of his parents’ Monroeville home.

Three other defendants face charges this month in connection with the prostitution and drug ring investigators say was run by the ball player’s girlfriend, Amy Schifano.

After kissing his mother and hustling his parents out of the courtroom, a subdued John Robert “Buck” Buczkowski, 43, stepped forward and pleaded to two counts of promoting prostitution, six counts of possessing and dealing cocaine, and one count each of participating in a corrupt organization, conspiracy, dealing in the proceeds of an illegal activity and illegal use of a cell phone.

He faced a sentence of 43¹/₂ to 87 years had he gone to trial. Instead, he agreed to testify against his co-defendants if they proceed to trial.

After a short-lived career in the NFL, the former Gateway and University of Pittsburgh football star bought the Gold Rush restaurant and bar in Monroeville and ran it with his parents.

The girlfriend seems to have been a real go-getter. She seemed to be the brains and facing the most charges. Buck apparently was the muscle.

I didn’t believe it then, or now. No, not the charges, the claim that this was a high-end prostitution ring. Out of Monroeville? For around $200/appointment? Talk about the affordable prices in Pittsburgh.

This came as no shock to me. I fully expected Pitt to want to fight any attempts to change the Commonwealth’s open records law to include Pitt, Penn State and Temple. Penn State may be out on point on this, and getting the most attention. Pitt is in there as well fighting against it.

In written testimony submitted for Pitt, Paul Supowitz, vice chancellor for governmental relations, said “the public is entitled to know how the university makes use of the funds provided by the commonwealth. However, inclusion in the broadly mandated disclosure requirements of a full open records provision will have very unnecessary and detrimental results for the University of Pittsburgh.”

Pitt and Penn State emphasized concern about their status as competitive research universities. Spanier said Pileggi’s bill would make Pennsylvania’s public research universities less attractive for company partnerships and deals surrounding licensing technology.

Oh, bull-effing-crap. Can they please cite the state that can claim the competitive advantage from a lack of open records that aided university research partnerships with companies? Pennsylvania has one of the weakest and worst open records laws — to go with the historically lack of transparency of government — amongst the 50 states. Lack of state government transparency should not be a competitive advantage.

You know what’s depressing about the hearing, only 3 of the 11 state senators on the committee bothered to show up for it.

The bill falls short of a similar proposal advocated by Mr. Rendell, the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association and others.

True open records law reform must include language that presumes government records are open to the public, testified Teri Henning, chief counsel for the newspaper association.

Senate Bill 1 does not change the presumption that records are closed unless the requester proves otherwise.

“Most state laws, and the federal Freedom of Information Act, begin with the presumption that records in the possession of agencies that relate to public business are public records,” she said.

It’s not even that strong a bill, though, the sponsor of the bill, State Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi is interested in amending the bill to change the presumption.

“Since introducing Senate Bill 1, I’ve heard from many people who believe that the legal presumption should be that a government record is public unless it meets an exception specifically listed in law. That position was also advocated by several of those who testified at today’s public hearing.

“I am now convinced that we should reverse the presumption in Pennsylvania’s law, despite concerns that doing so could lead to an increase in litigation and delay the benefit from strengthening our Open Records Act.

“Reversing the presumption is a major change, and we need to carefully balance the right of citizens to review records with the need for appropriate exceptions to protect legitimate interests. Developing the list of exceptions should involve input from a wide spectrum of interested parties.

“My goal is to work with Sen. Piccola and other members of the Senate, members of the House, Gov. Rendell, the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association and other organizations. I hope to prepare an amendment to Senate Bill 1 which can be offered in the State Government Committee as soon as possible.”

Sorry if this seems off-topic, but the sad fact is that Pitt is just as eager as Penn State to keep the status quo. Pitt may have made the base salaries of its highest paid coaches publicly known, but they are happy to keep Paterno’s and the situation the same. That doesn’t make Pitt better on the issue. It just makes the school a little more savvy about staying directly out of the argument.

Not sure how I missed this the first time I scanned through, but this is a nice little gem.

Strong allegedly broke Sappleton’s two cell phones and Sappleton was pushed to the ground. Medics checked Sappleton and found no abrasions, contusions or swelling relative to the incident.

Strong’s lady friend had two cell phones? For some reason this made me laugh. And yes, this is in fact the most Pitt related news we’ve seen this weekend.

Only 89 days until kickoff.