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Who Like's Burman?

3

307bball

Well-known member
Basically what the title says....who thinks Burman has (is) done (doing) a good job?

My experience is that people either don't know who he is (casual fan)...or they think he's not doing well. I'm unaware of a direct statement from the BoT but if you are paying him what he's making, they must at least tacitly approve or, at best, just hope he figures it out.

To clarify...I'm not asking if you think he's up against an insurmountable task...just, do you think he's doing good.
 
No educated person could rationally believe Burman is achieving success and doing a good job with the Wyoming athletic department. But there are a lot of blind cheerleaders out there (mostly not on this site). The amount of praise he got on other social media sites for giving up a home game (and the money that comes with it) so CSU could get out of getting curb stomped and get another home game tells me all I need to know about our fan base at large.
 
He’s a literal bum that should have been fired 15 years ago. The fact he is still employed is an indictment on four governors, the legislature, four UW presidents and dozens of BOT members and the state as a whole. He’s the biggest embarrassment of the last 50 years statewide
 
Bryoming said:
Is he doing a good job of upgrading facilites and fundraising? Yes. That's an associate AD job, though. His job is to make sure the programs under the athletic department are winning championships. At that he is failing MISERABLY.
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More than that I would say AD's are tied to the hires they make in Football and Basketball. Tom Burman has hired more FB and Basketball coach's than any AD I can remember in D1 sports. Burman is the J Edgar Hoover of AD's, he must have dirt on everyone. But Kudos to him for keeping his job for so long.
 
Facilities and concessions and the like are fun to talk about and look at - but the only measuring stick that matters is whether the teams under your control win or lose. Best I can tell, we are losing a lot more than we win in the sports that matter (and, other than women's basketball and maybe volleyball, those that aren't revenue generating). The apathy and malaise surrounding UW athletics hangs like a thick and ugly fog. Outside of building stuff, as was mentioned, and cutting ribbons, what is the current operating thesis at UW and in the athletic department? Do the best you can? Just try to not get beat by too many?

As has been related many times, there are NO programs at UW (athletics or otherwise) that are geared to achieve true excellence. NONE. Some are nice and functioning. But none are truly excellent or positioned to get to excellence in a broad sense. We aren't even excellent in our region - no less nationally or globally.
 
Cornpoke said:
More than that I would say AD's are tied to the hires they make in Football and Basketball. Tom Burman has hired more FB and Basketball coach's than any AD I can remember in D1 sports. Burman is the J Edgar Hoover of AD's, he must have dirt on everyone. But Kudos to him for keeping his job for so long.
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Both J Edgar and Burman suck
 
The only comment that I feel like I am entitled to make is that Wyoming does seem to be more complacent and willing to accept mediocrity than others. Aside from some of the Bohl years, we've been consistently below average since Tiller's last two or three years. Basketball even worse. Are there many programs in the country that would stand for at least 20-22 bad years out of 30? Maybe 6 or 7 years mediocre and maybe 2 or 3 pretty good? In 1996, we lost to BYU by 3 pts in the WAC championship (if memory serves me). Can't even imagine being able to do that again.

Imagine being competitive every single year like Boise State? As others have said...facilities are really nice. He deserves a lot of credit for that. But the 'W''s aren't there and that is what its all about. Time to find a new AD if that is what it takes to make Wyoming competitive again.

My one difference of opinion is salary. I don't think $500K for an AD at Div 1/FBS is a lot of money and it isn't a strike against Burman. Maybe Wyoming is getting what it is paying for? Wisconsin's AD Chris McIntosh makes $1.5M per year with minimum $50K annual bumps (and they suck).

Burman's salary is about the same as UNM's AD and Gonzaga's AD. It's a mistake to think we could go shopping for the best with $500K. Maybe Gloria Nevarez will free up some time.
 
307bball said:
Hmmm about what I thought. The slice of Wyoming fans frequenting this board is pretty much done with the guy.
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Sawvel’s contract is indefensible from any angle. Under no rational line of thinking is there any way to argue it was in Wyoming’s best interest to fully guarantee a contract to a guy with no past HC experience and not being pursued by anyone but us. That alone should be grounds for termination of the AD…let alone a complete inability to produce championships in anything for decades.
 
I could go on forever with my main issues. Besides the mediocrity of most programs. . . There does not seem to be ANY fiscal accountability or reasonableness. Besides the Sawvel contract, the Schroyer extension (again when nobody else was even considering him for any other jobs) then subsequent buyout which included the period of the extension. Christensen had a similar scenario. Linder too. These people were already making high salaries and the fact that they happened to have some success is what they are being paid for. Burman loves giving out unneccessary extensions. The swimming pool or lack of engagement with the town of Laramie which was already building the best pool in the state across the street. It's just bad optics. Couldn't UW contribute $20 million and upgrade the Laramie pool even more and save the taxpayers about $60 million. That would have looked better. Then i don't get the feeling he really has a feel for the nuances of the games that are going on. There has never been any sense of what might be successful with either football or basketball. In football are we a passing program (CHristensen) or mosty running (Bohl). At a school like Wyoming you need to find that. Granted that often depends on your talent or roster, but it starts with the AD who has to have some concept of what will work at Wyoming. He seems to have no idea and that is reflected with his programs. His salary increase and extension felt like it was a secret that they were trying to keep hidden from the fan base. It was bad enough that he got a raise and an extension, but then the optics of that were disasterous. UW is a publlic institution. He and the BOT should have upfront about that immediately. Why didn't that get released immediately when it happened? That was terrible! There's more, but i'm worn out.
 
The absolute worst thing that could happen is Sawvel gets fired and Burman is put in charge of hiring yet another head coach. There’s no way out of this mess other than riding what we have for the time being, praying the BOT doesn’t run a clown show search for a new President, praying the new President will come in and thank Burman for his service and then conduct a proper search for a new AD followed shortly be a new football coaching staff. This is likely a 2 year process or so to do it right. But I fully expect the BOT to botch it.
 
OrediggerPoke said:
Sawvel’s contract is indefensible from any angle. Under no rational line of thinking is there any way to argue it was in Wyoming’s best interest to fully guarantee a contract to a guy with no past HC experience and not being pursued by anyone but us. That alone should be grounds for termination of the AD…let alone a complete inability to produce championships in anything for decades.
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I don't understand how he makes what he makes. If I'm negotiating this contract I say, "listen, we want to give you this opportunity. You're a first time head coach and we'd like to keep some continuity in our program. With that being said, your base salary is going to reflect that you're an unproven first time coach. However, we're going to add some very nice performance based incentives. If you end up winning as many games as the previous coach, we feel you should be compensated equally. This is a great opportunity to prove yourself. This is our final offer, you're more than welcome to pursue other head coaching opportunities"
 
laxwyo said:
I don't understand how he makes what he makes. If I'm negotiating this contract I say, "listen, we want to give you this opportunity. You're a first time head coach and we'd like to keep some continuity in our program. With that being said, your base salary is going to reflect that you're an unproven first time coach. However, we're going to add some very nice performance based incentives. If you end up winning as many games as the previous coach, we feel you should be compensated equally. This is a great opportunity to prove yourself. This is our final offer, you're more than welcome to pursue other head coaching opportunities"
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I honestly believe you have to look at it through the lens of preserving junior rather than PBJ. If it is true that TB and Senior constructed the plan, then PBJ decision and subsequent contract make perfect sense. The goal was to ensure junior was insulated from the hire/fire cycle for at least a few years giving him time to build a resume at the DC position. Senior would have more than enough foresight to predict there might be struggles.

For this reason, TB needs to be heavily scrutinized.
 
laxwyo said:
I don't understand how he makes what he makes. If I'm negotiating this contract I say, "listen, we want to give you this opportunity. You're a first time head coach and we'd like to keep some continuity in our program. With that being said, your base salary is going to reflect that you're an unproven first time coach. However, we're going to add some very nice performance based incentives. If you end up winning as many games as the previous coach, we feel you should be compensated equally. This is a great opportunity to prove yourself. This is our final offer, you're more than welcome to pursue other head coaching opportunities"
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Are you looking for a job as an athletic director? It appears you are much more qualified than our current one.
 
ragtimejoe1 said:
When the ship begins sinking many will jump. When it sinks far enough, even the vermin bail.
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Are the fans the vermin in your analogy?...My theory was that people following Wyoming athletics either don't have an opinion of him (casuals), or they are tuned in enough to have a negative opinion of him (most everybody on this board).

From reading on here, Burman has some people in the media at least who are fans of doing what it takes to keep CSU on the schedule. I don't really think that is indicative of any sort of grassroots support for Burman.....the business model for Wyoming media is such that these are not truly "independent" outlets. Even given that, I'm unaware of media or tweets talking about how great it is that we have Tom Burman as AD...the best is sort of the applause when he accidently gets something right (still subjective).

The only reading of why Burman is still employed as AD that makes sense to me is that the position, as it exists in Laramie, is not in any way tied to competitive outcomes. Fans loving your hating a person in that desk means nothing if donations/attendance/marketing targets are going in the right direction. Now...Burmans decisions will degrade competitive outcomes enough to eventually cause those other metrics to fall but it takes longer.

AD might be one of those jobs where if people know much about you, that may mean you aren't doing your job well.
 
I like Tom Burman as a person. I've talked to him a lot over the years, and I believe he loves the University of Wyoming and the State of Wyoming. He works hard, is humble, and isn't afraid to engage with fans even when they come at him with criticism. He deserves credit for that. I really wish he would of had success at UW because he is a great representative of Wyoming in my opinion.

All that being said, he just isn't cutting it as our AD. I'm not sure how anyone could argue otherwise at this point. I'm not sure if there is anybody out there that can get it done as our AD, but we have to at least try.
 
OrediggerPoke said:
Sawvel’s contract is indefensible from any angle. Under no rational line of thinking is there any way to argue it was in Wyoming’s best interest to fully guarantee a contract to a guy with no past HC experience and not being pursued by anyone but us. That alone should be grounds for termination of the AD…let alone a complete inability to produce championships in anything for decades.
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Agreed 100% - the buck stops with Burman, and he should definitely be axed on this blunder. How many lives does this guy get??!! (Schroyer, Schroyer Extension, Schroyer Mid Season Firing, Edwards Hiring & Contract, DC Extension, Linder Situation, AA reseating and remodel disaster, etc., etc., etc.).
 
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