Zulgad: President has chance to make big impact on major sports at 'U'
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There was never any doubt Joel Maturi was going to step down as the athletic director at the University of Minnesota when his contract expired in June, the only question was when an announcement was going to be made.
He had been telling close friends for months that it was either going happen in January or February.
An emotional Maturi followed through on Thursday morning, declaring he would be leaving the position he took in 2002.
There will be many who won't be sad to see Maturi depart from the athletic director's chair.
Those people forever will remember Maturi as the guy who hired a little-known tight ends coach from the Denver Broncos, Tim Brewster, as his head football coach in 2007. Disaster might not be a strong enough word to describe how that turned out.
Glen Mason had gotten the Gophers to a level of respectability - although it was, in reality, mediocrity - before he was shown the door. Mason suffered some brutal losses as the Gophers coach but he did manage to lead the program to a series of second-tier bowl games.
Brewster put the Gophers right back in the basement and, again, made them a punch line. He went 1-11 in his first season and in his second year the Gophers were destroyed 55-0 by Iowa. Brewster's teams had records of 7-6, 6-7 and 1-6 before he was shown the door during the 2010 season.
But while the football community likely will never forgive Maturi, there will be another group that remembers him as the guy who helped save men's and women's golf, as well as men's gymnastics.
Maturi, who will turn 67 next week, was a champion of the non-revenue sports at the university, showing up at a variety of games and keeping crazy hours so he could do his best to serve every sport.
Maturi spoke Thursday of how he was finally feeling the effects of that schedule and how stepping away made sense given that he didn't know how to do the job any differently than he always has.
This decision now will enable Maturi to take a breath and enjoy life. He and his wife, Lois, will retire in Minnesota and Maturi will continue to work at the university, teaching, doing fund-raising and assisting President Eric Kaler on various projects.
Maturi had been offered a contract by former university president Robert Bruininks 18 months ago to continue as AD, but said no thanks because he knew Bruininks was on the way out and didn't want to take a job where it turned out he wasn't wanted.
That now seems to be a very wise choice.
Kaler agreed with Maturi that it was the right time for Maturi to retire, and seems pleased that he will have the chance to put his stamp on the athletic department.
But now that he has the opportunity, Kaler will find that all the pressure is on him. And, if he messes this up, he will be remembered by many the same way Maturi will be for hiring Brewster.
Kaler was savvy in answering questions on Thursday, talking about integrity and anything else that sounds like a no-lose answer. But as he works with the search firm that the university will employ, Kaler is going to have to make some tough decisions about how he wants things to run.
One reason the Gophers haven't been relevant in football since the early 1960s is because the program has never received the tender loving care that so many other schools are willing to give to football.
Call it favoritism if you want, but remember this: If you want to be successful in big-time college athletics, if you want to go to Jan. 1 (or later) bowl games, if you want big-time recruits to come to your school, then you have to treat your football program like a big business.
Not as just another program that happens to operate on your campus.
One rule of thumb is that the most successful schools list their top five sports in this order: football, football, football, men's basketball and football.
Do you really think for one second that Maturi's first choice in 2007 was to hire Brewster? Of course, it wasn't. Maturi would have loved nothing more than to have gone to another successful school and hired their coach away.
It was never going to happen.
That's the sad thing. The Gophers moved into a beautiful on-campus facility in 2009, a building that features a home locker room many NFL teams would envy, and yet a big-time coach looks at the total picture at the university and has little interest in coming here.
Tubby Smith was promised a practice facility in 2007 when he became the Gophers men's basketball coach. Four-plus years later, he's still waiting. We might roll our eyes at Tubby's attempt to get a practice venue, but any football or basketball coach who considers a job with the Gophers is going to be made aware of the inability to fulfill that promise.
Maturi received several strange looks when he hired Jerry Kill from Northern Illinois to replace Brewster. Couldn't the Gophers have done better than that?
Clearly, the answer was no.
Kill wasn't about to turn down the chance to coach in the Big Ten. A coach with a big-time resume looked at the Minnesota situation and said the following: "I can do better and I don't need that headache."
It's worth noting that some positive changes have started to occur around the football program. There is new turf for the indoor and outdoor practice fields; the recruiting budget has risen to fifth in the Big Ten; the Gophers are now in the middle of the pack in total revenue spent; and a third strength coach has been added.
Kaler must make sure he gets someone who not only keeps this momentum going but improves on it for Kill, or the next coach.
It's his job to make sure that those involved in the biggest potential money-making sports at the University of Minnesota - those would be football, men's basketball and (a distant third) men's hockey - no longer deem the school's job listings as a potential headache.
This can be accomplished by hiring an experienced athletic director and then turning the program over to that person.
Kaler's next step would be to inform everyone else at the university that he appreciates their input and their work but that the new person is in charge and that is that. Changes likely will be made, some, or many might be painful, and that is just too bad.
If that doesn't work, at least Kaler tried. If it does work, the University of Minnesota might have a chance to begin thriving in the sports that drive the business of big-time athletics.
