Buy/Sell -- It's time to....

[Spotdawg]

for the new AD and the new President of MSU to do a "sit down" with Ron Polk. Between his constant and tedious naked promotion of Raffo for the head coach job, and his choreographed performance this weekend with the umps (getting tossed not once, not twice, but THREE times.)

I give it a soft buy. Much more of this charade and we will be lucky to get anyone from the outside to take the baseball job. The baseball program is beginning to look very shaky with this constant "loose-screw" performance that Polk is giving.

If this were my company, that sit-down would happen at 9am in the morning. And there would be a list of items that Polk would agree to follow from now on.....or I would make the final "toss".....and for good.</p>

 

[was21]

although not exactly the same at all, yet not exactly remotely dissimilar either. Byrne doesn't have "hammer" to do as you suggest at this particular time, and the interim prez won't go out on a limb and support him, even if he wanted to. Byrne will show soon what kind of cajones he has, but this is not the time to fight the battle or the war.</p>

 

[Keyser Soze.sixpack]

I don't think it would do any good. Remember that Polk is above MSU baseball and all parties involved. He is going to say and do whatever he wants to. I just feel that Byrne is not going to let Polk affect his decision. It could not be a better time for state to have Byrne making this hire. I am confident that he is going to do the right thing. I have no inside info to base this on just a gut feeling that Cohen will be our next coach. If Raffo is hired then I will have 6 grandstand seats for sale for the entirety of his tenure. I have never seen the stands as empty as they are on such a regular basis.

 

[Spotdawg]

about the empty seats. I was embarrassed last weekend. The silence and emptiness spoke volumes.

It is a very tenuous step for Byrne and Watson ( still so new in their positions)....and that's where Polk has leverage. I have to think that every time Polk "shows out" that his leverage decreases exponentially with the school and the fan base. Just look how negative his show has become on this board. There used to be a seemingly 50-50 split about him last year and the beginning of this year.

 

[Todd4State]

If I was Byrne, I would just let Polk act like an idiot. It makes his recommendation and opinion less and less credible every time he does something ridiculous. Think about today- Raffo actually dropped his stock a little by "coaching". What would happen if Polk gets tossed and then Raffo takes over and we pull another trip to Omaha out of our ***? (I know that's not likely to happen, but stay with me here.) Then we might end up with a Rod Barnes- takes team to Sweet 16 and then runs program into the ground, except the baseball version.

Plus, there would be some sheep who would be upset about Polk being run off "in disgrace". Just let the man get his silver platters and ride the season out. Plus, I feel like our best chance to win is with Polk right now, at least until the year ends.

 

[dawgstudent]

[No message]

 

[Todd4State]

that would be a baseball miracle- no other way to put it.

I'll tell you though, the problem is if Raffo even made a Regional, that would be good enough to hire him in the opinion of some.

 

[Mutt the Hoople.buhoops]

..after making a Brooks Robinson-type play.

 

[Stormrider81]

Byrne can't threaten to end Polk's tenure before the season ends. He doesn't have the juice to do that and it would only divide the fanbase and alienate those who played and coached under the man. But, he does need to have a discussion with him ASAP. If I were him this is what I would say: "This has got to stop, Ron. You are a legend, you've done a ton of good things for this school and this conference and we all cannot thank you enough. However, you aren't conducting yourself as a legend right now. In fact, you are acting very childish and very unprofessional. You've recommended Raffo and we will consider him, I promise you that. However, if you keep these antics up I can also promise you the likelyhood of me hiring Raffo goes down. Everytime you plug Raffo it makes me wonder why you have to go to such lengths to sell the guy as a legitimate candidate. His resume should be able to speak for itself. The more you keep airing the laundry out in the various forms of media the less chance Raffo has of getting this job. If you ever get thrown out of all 3 games of an SEC series again this season I will not hire Raffo, I won't even consider him in the coaching search. You can go and continue your forceplay if you want but you are only hurting your guy. Your tenure ends soon and then I have to worry about the future of MSU baseball. What you are doing right now is dividing our fanbase and harming our program."</p>

 

[War Machine Dawg]

Polk's ego is out of control, and Byrne needs to sit him down and get it under control. Since he doesn't have the juice to get rid of Polk (and let's be honest, what would it matter to #1 if he leaves now instead of the end of the season), the way to get to Polk is through Raffo. Use his recommendation of Raffo as leverage and tell Polk, with apologies to Croom, "Be good or Tommy's gone (from consideration)." Since it's clear the only thing Polk cares about at this point is his ego and the promotion of Raffo, you've got to devise a way to use that to control him.

 

[MaxwellSmart]

It's not happening but it should.

 

[RebelBruiser]

but if Polk sees the search going another direction other than Raffo, what do you think the odds are that he trys to go back on his resignation? I don't know what legal grounds he would have if he decided to say "I've changed my mind, I'm not resigning this year." Given some of his recent actions, I wouldn't put it past him. Whether he would be able to be successful in staying on or not is another story.

 

[Todd4State]

That's a good point, but then we could always fire him. His lunacy and a losing record would probably be enough to do that.

 

[bulldogcountry1]

he'd get my vote.