I continue to be amazed.

G

GTYELLOWJACKET

Varsity Lurker
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Aug 21, 2002
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Our head coach doesn't know what he is doing.

A. He isn't recruiting the state of Georgia. I think this generated about 150 posts of panic and negative commentary. Well what do you know? We have commitments from Georgia HS players and several more interested.

B. He isn't playing Bilbo often enough. Should CG go to the AJC and make a point by point list explaining to the entire world why Bilbo is the back up? Just because the starter doesn't bust your bubble doesn't mean that he isn't the best QB option that we have.

C. If we are allowed 56 + 6 hold over official visits, we are stupid to not use them. Well, official visits cost money and time. If you can get your full allotment of the best players available to you without the full number of visits, why blow the money and the coaching staffs time. I would rather spend the money on the facilities or marketing and the time on future opponents or analysis of next years recruits.

How about giving it a rest as far as the HC is concerned. Spend a little energy jumping on the opposition not our guys!
pat.gif
 
good post... the lack of confidence in our program goes back many years though.. its a tough habit to break for some...
 
GTYELLOWJACKET Fan........you are correct. Unfortunately, this board has become the "bash Gailey" board. The only decent GT news I see over here lately are post that are linked from the Hive or posted by Hive posters who are kind enough to post the same information over here.
 
I agree that there have been some bashing that was undeserved but some of the criticism of CG was deserved. He runs the program as if it was a secret order and he seems to feel that the Tech supporters have no right to know anything that goes on inside the program. This has not set well with many and they are letting it be known in many ways apart from the message boards. When CG was hired DB made a strong emphasis that he wanted
better relations with the media. But what did CG do? He muzzled all his assistants from talking to
the press unless it was cleared by him. So we have a worse communication problem with Chan than we ever had with O,Leary. The AA is not timid about begging for money to pay for the facilities
and the other needs by the AA but what they seem
to forget is that we need to know a little about how our money is spent. CG is probably the weakest coach that Tech has had in terms of communication. This is a lot of baggage for a leader in 1A football and eventually it will rise up to bite him.
 
Big Buck,

Al Groh does not allow assistants or players to speak to the media without going through him and some on this board have held him up as a model of what kind of coach we wanted to be. Additionally, on the subject of media relations; at the end of his tenure O'Leary was in a virtual war with the AJC. I dare say for whatever shortcomings Chan has in dealing with the media we are no longer in a war with the AJC. If it makes you feel any better, Gailey meets with Kim King for lunch on a weekly basis...so all alumni are not being shut out.
 
You know, the whole "O'leary vs the AJC" thing is something that really chaps at me.

George O'leary did not get promoted to the Head Coaching job at GT with some sort of anti-media chip on his sholders. In fact, when he was named interim, and then permanent HC, he was viewed as a witty quote machine, with comments such as "I thought he meant the Army" (wrt Elliot Fortune applying early for the draft) eaten up by the press. The press, and particularly the AJC, loved him.

The AJC absolutely earned every bit of animsoity they derived. When O'leary had brought GT to an equal footing with UGA, the gloves were off. The whole weekly series and slo-mo photo's after the '99 game re: Jaspers gift were too far (esp after the abrupt dissmissal of any "controversy" in the UGA win of '97). But the final straw was the front page (not front sports page, but front page) story/non-story on Vietekunas (sp?).

At this point, O'leary was done with the AJC, and he had all the right to.

Of course, Branie wasn't even around when GO took the job, so he only saw the falling out.

The problem with comparing any Tech coach to Dodd was that in Dodds tenure, guys like Furman Bisher were good independent journalists who ran the sports section - they viewed GT as the home team, and did not try to undermine us as today's AJC editors do. If you go back to, say the Graining-Holt incident in Alabama, a lot of the outrage at that play was fostered and written about by the AJC, in support of Tech. No way that article gets written today, even though Alabamma isn't anywhere near the home team, and we are. The article slant would be how real football played in the SEC is for tough people, not for the ACC wimps.

Anyway, it sort of irks me when I hear this topic brought up (GT coaches media relations). It's not the GT coaches that are the problem. Heck, you've even had recent beat writers like Hollis insinuate their editors re-wrote a piece on GT to slant it a certain way.
 
Agree with you 100%. The AJC is an entirely different organization than today than it was in Dodd's day. The "resume scandal" would have been a non-issue back in Dodd's day. Hypothetically, if a coach had errors in his bio (I know, no coaches had bio's back then) Furman Bisher would have alerted Dodd to it, the bio would have been corrected and nothing ever would have appeared in the paper. If Dodd were coaching today, the AJC would be riding him about his gambling, etc.
 
I guess a big part of the difference in opinions goes to basic expectations. Big Buck talks about what we as Tech supporters deserve to know. My take is that I don't deserve to know anything. Basically because if I know it everybody else in the world does as well. What I deserve is a winning team (IMO - actually I don't deserve that either, I just want it). I don't really want our HC talking about players to the media unless it's good stuff. All the other needs to stay within the team IMO. My personal view is that CG knows how bad the AJC screwed O'Leary and Tech and isn't giving them anything more than he has to. And I don't have a bit of a problem with that.
 
NCjacket you obviously have never seen a Spurrier call in show when he was at Florida. He took the hard questions from hte FANS and gave the hard answers. Mr. Blank didn't fill the dome by having NO press relations - and the Falcons get rapped wrose than Tech. Dan Reeves is up at Killer Creek week after week whether they win, lose or tie. CG didn't evn got the the Lunch with Coach or what ever the hell they call it now. Where do you suggest people learn about Tech if there is no media realions?
 
Spurrier call in show when he was at Florida. He took the hard questions from hte FANS and gave the hard answers
Click to expand...
<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">That was one of the few things I admired about Bill Lewis. Before the internet all we had was the call-in show and believe me he got some very tough and pointed questions. He never dodged them and gave as direct answers as he could. Obviously, there were some things he couldn't say in public, but he answered each question. Unfortunately, that characteristic didn't keep him from being a abject failure as our coach.
 
Gailey needs to get and be real friendly with the media. He needs to communicate more - not less.

If he is clever and charming enough with the reporters, he can end up controlling what they are writing about Tech - and generally influence the tenor of the articles.

He could easily plant each day's story with the media. He needs to take PR 101 - even in MBA programs these days they are teaching how to handle the media. It is not a difficult concept. Furman Bisher laid it out for him in his article about this time last year. The writer is looking for something to write about - so feed him an idea. Gailey is in the best position to know what interesting stories are out there that paint Tech in a positive light. If the writer always has a good positive story he won't be so inclined to print the negative stories. Sometimes the negative story is written because it is just easier or the writer knows no other story.

And he can reduce the impact of the negative stories by putting his spin on them if he is friendly with the reporter. Help Hollis with his job - don't make it more difficult for Hollis. Hollis is just doing his job - but if we make it easier for him; either consciously or subconsciously he will reward our efforts.

For example, the other day I read an article in which Gailey stated that it wasn't his job to evaluate players for the NFL anymore. Well, one his greatest strengths as a recruiter is his NFL background. He blew a chance to pontificate and emphasis his NFL experience rather than letting recruits think he now considers his NFL experience irrelevant in getting to the pros. I know - he said he would answer questions - how proactive and helpful does that sound to a recruit?

If I had to rate his dealings with the media - I would give him an F - not necessarily because he has created animosity but because he is missing opportunities.

The media can be your friend or adversary. He needs to make them his friend.
 
I do agree that he could be using the media better, what I was mainly reacting to is the belief that personnel stuff should be in the papers.

Actually davetech, I never heard the Spurrier callin show at FLA. I did see him piss off almost everyone who was associated with Duke before he left, but that's a different story.
 
When Dodd was Tech's coach, Tech and the Crackers were the only games in town. Dodd was a personal friend of Bisher and Ed Miles, the long-time Tech beat writer. Nowadays, the Tech HC has to make every effort, go out of his way to get any publicity for Tech FB. Gailey needs to realize that as Tech HC, PR is a substantial part of his job.
 
Ummm...goldbuzz...wrt your bashing Gailey stating that it wasn't his job to evaluate talent for the NFL - perhaps Gailey answered the question this way as avoiding a delicate situation. Perhaps he doesn't feel very highly of the NFL chances of our current group of players, and doesn't want to say such in the paper.

As I am sure you'll recall, O'leary took a lot of heat in the AJC (and it eventually indirectly got him a 1 game NCAA minor violations suspension) from CJ Williams father for allegedly "bad mouthing" CJ to the scouts et. al.

I'm sure you remember from the article that Gailey indicated he discussed with the players what they should be working on in preperation for the combines.

Rest assured, the recruits know and understand CG's NFL history, experience, and connections.

Sometimes there are reasons people answer questions a certain way.
 
Maybe there are reasons and maybe there are not. I say it's a missed opportunity.

And maybe there are reasons that his answers are reported in a certain way.
 
Look, bottom line is I can't believe he (Gailey) can't get the press relations right after that was a focal point of his hiring press conference.

You're going to have to work hard to find excuses for him in that area.
 
If we want more GT articles in the AUC we need more than one a day (if that) on RamblinWreck.com. And not just the recap of last week's game. We need feature articles on all the players. Think the readers in Augusta would like to know how Brian Johnson is doing?

All articles on RamblinWreck should end up as press releases or on the AP wire if possible. If you force feed the AUC news and ideas then some of it will end up in print. And that will generate interest in our program.
 
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