I don't recall the details, but it doesn't seem like we were in a position to be turning up our noses at bowl bids. Did we actually get invites and Dixon declined them?
Can anyone refresh my memory? Why did King Dixon decline bowl bids in '89 and '90?
- Thread starter 18IsTheMan
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At the time King Dixon gave the reasons that exams were going on at the same time. Not sure but I think during this time it was a transition time for when Coach Morrison passed away and there was some interesting issues still lingering and King Dixon used the exams as an excuse for not accepting the bowl bids. Those kids worked hard and they deserved to go to a bowl. Shortly after King Dixon was replaced as A.D.
There were only 18 bowls in 1989, so getting an invite still carried some significance. Not like today. Not to say it would have changed things about Woods tenure, necessarily, but he did start off with two 6-win seasons, which is good for us, and we declined bowl invites each year. Maybe we get a bowl win in 1989 to go 7-4-1 and it energizes the program. Who knows? Dixon kind of kneecapped Woods at the start.
In 1989, we had lost Todd Ellis, and were playing with DeMasi, we had lost 3 of 4, somehow beating UNC but losing to NC State and FSU and then the last game a 45-0 drubbing at home on ESPN at the hand of you know who. We also had that "never won a bowl game streak" hanging over us, and I don't think DeMasi was going to change that.
Of the 2, the 1990 one, hurt Momentum more, we had just beat West Virginia on national TV to close the season, so a bowl game and a win, would of helped Woods for sure!
Of the 2, the 1990 one, hurt Momentum more, we had just beat West Virginia on national TV to close the season, so a bowl game and a win, would of helped Woods for sure!
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It's just odd compared to the current climate when teams will fight and scrap for any crap hole bowl they can get. We'd been to 8 bowls in our history prior to 1989, so to turn down 2 in a row seems odd.
Dixon was odd. He also fired George Felton after Felton got pinched for DUI, a rap that wound up being thrown out on a technicality. Felton appeared ready to turn the corner here.
Dixon was a disaster. Have read that he didn't really want the job and had to be begged to take it. Search team wanted someone with good character and integrity. Replacing an even more disastrous Holderman. Dixon wasn't satisfied with destroying FB but had to destroy MBB, too.
He was a banker; he should have remained a banker.
Firing Felton was one of the biggest mistakes we ever made.
Wouldn't the Independence Bowl have been a money-loser for us as well? Playing as an independent back then, without the advantage of pooling conference bowl money, I think the bottom-tier bowl bids were actually a financial penalty rather than a windfall. Of course, a leader thinking about the overall health of a football program understands that a bowl game is not purely a financial proposition.
Opportunities to advance a fledgling (for want of a better word) program were foregone.
Akin to firing Jim Carlen. Stupid decisions which were made by power mad AD controllers. Read that Felton found out about his firing from reading a newspaper. That says all we need to know about Dixon's "leadership".
These ego centered decision makers are who have held USC back from winning championships.
Who deserves championship MBB and FB more than GC fans? No one. We are always hopeful. It was almost heaven having Steve as coach but even he gave up and concentrated more on golf than winning CFB. Wish USC had had the foresight to hire him alway from Duke when he was young and full of energy.
Of course, we may have a young Steve at the helm now.
Good grief. SOS was at Duke one year. Mama offered him the hc job. Do you really think we would have had a chance when he wanted the Florida job? IMO, can't hang that one on anyone at USC.
I think Dixon’s connection to Hawkins gave some people the idea that magic would occur. Dixon was a good man but he was too sanctimonious and uptight to be an AD.
He did have the good sense to accept the SEC invite so give him an attaboy for that.
My mama always said find something good, at least one thing, before criticizing. You broke the ice Barb. I’d like to add King Dixon, despite his faults, was an excellent football player for us and his outstanding play lead to a couple of big upsets. He loved the Gamecocks. There I’ve said it Mama.
Yep, when they fired Carlen, they should have been firing Holderman instead. He was the Jim Bakker of academia. The Board bet on the wrong horse - with terrible consequences for the University. I think they all deserved to be unseated because of that. It was a colossal blunder - BOTH ends of it.
I was aware of the propensity if not the locale. Bear Bryant did a stint at Betty Ford. George was worth saving.
Maybe getting fired did save him. Who's to say?
As far as his coaching tenure, I saw no evidence he was about to start competing for SEC titles. He benefited immensely from coaching during the golden age of Columbia high school basketball. Once that well dried up, he was going to have pull in talent from outside his backyard. And Jamie Watson wasn't enough.
I'm surprised that you of all people were satisfied with just OK. I guess you apply high standards selectively.
I know to what you're referring, and tell me you didn't or haven't come to expect high standards from our WBB program. It took Dawn awhile but she was given awhile. Sure, I expect a team that runs out to a 36-0 record and that is unanimously regarded as the best in the country to close the deal.
And if I seem overly disappointed in the outcome and consider it historically tragic, I make no apologies. Subsequent events can never assuage those opinions regarding this year's team and might even buttress them in times ahead if events dictate.
I'm a man who remembers King Dixon hiring Steve Newton, OK? George Felton left in 1991 (the school officially joined the SEC on July 1, 1991) and it wasn't about his coaching. What his performance might have been in the SEC was yet to be determined. I saw some promising earlier signs. Beating the UPC team that made the Sweet 16 in 1990 was one of those signs.
His intensity, along with his already ingrained love for the school, encouraged me to believe he could elevate the program.
His tenure here was cut short. His firing had nothing to do with performance. In time, he might not have succeeded, but that was yet to be seen one way or the other.
Addendum: if we ever have another basketball team - male or female - to go 36-0 and then crap the bed in like manner as we saw this year, I'll make it a point to be just as disenchanted as I am now. I don't want people to misconstrue this as something personal or prejudiced. It is neither.
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Dawn Staley went 25-10 year four. Eddie Folger went 24-8 and won an SEC title in year four.
Sorry, it wasn't happening for George at Carolina. Not a bad coach. Just not one good enough to wonder "what might have been" about.
You don't have to. I can handle it. I lived through Newton and Horn. No problem for me to muse about the possible upside of a true Gamecock a little longer.
Oh yeah, I forgot: Frank Martin was 25-9 in year four. He was 26-11 and took his team to the Final Four the next season.
Hell, Dave Odom won NIT championships in years 4 and 5.
Most coaches peak in their first 5 seasons. Chances are Felton's peak would have been the 1st round loss to NC State in the NCAA tournament, if given more time
But dream on
The thread is about Dixon. The thrust is that his regime was maladroit and grossly counterproductive. The assertion is that his handling of Felton was in line with the general tenor of his regime. Neither you nor anyone else has educed any evidence to contradict that assertion, although you tried the hardest. Good afternoon.
Dream on. You worked your @$$ off NOT influencing - or even addressing - the main point of the discussion, and refuting a projection that is unknown and unknowable either way. Nice job.
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I had one phone conversation with Dixon while he was AD. He came across as a most unpleasant person. Rude and totally unwilling to even consider my suggestion.
Wrong again. Even when you admit you're wrong, you still try to say-I was right.
Duke Years:
| 1989 | 8-4 | -- | Won ACC (6-1); lost All-American Bowl |
| 1988 | 7-3-1 | -- | Went 3-3-1 in ACC (6th place) |
| 1987 | 5-6 | -- | Went 2-5 in ACC (7th place) |
It's always puzzled me that they pretended to not know what was going on with Holderman. I think it boiled down to the fact that Jim was not an *** kisser. They massaged their huge(hugely misplaced)egos by firing him.