Some #Badgers news for you today: Barry Alvarez, UW's full-time AD since 2006, is close to retiring. Expect an announcement sometime in the next couple weeks. Sounds as if Alvarez could stay on through July. We'll have a quick story on our site soon. He is 74.
— Jeff Potrykus (@jaypo1961) March 27, 2021
All lined up for Chryst moving into the AD position and Leonhard taking over as HC. Leonhard's Packer decision coming into focus.
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A very interesting development. If Chryst does end up AD, and Jimmy Leonhard the football coach, this does not bode well for the basketball program and what needs to be done. The Badger Athletic leadership would in that case be as delusional as many in the fanbase...
Barry is on the Mount Rushmore of Badger sports. An absolute legend. He shall be missed.
He had a Lombardi-like impact on that program. As a child of the sad, sad, 60's, 70's and 80's Badger sports programs...what a 30 year run that man brought to us.
Barry is a larger-than-life presence in Badger history, obviously. Some of the stories about his off-the-field behavior that have been buried by the local press make for a little more complexity. I have a colleague whose family had a cottage next to where Barry had a place north of Madison. She was not allowed to go outside at night when Barry had parties there because of what she might see or hear (and she is by no means a prude).
He is clearly on Bucky Mount Rushmore, thought. However, I think Pat Richter is still the guy that should get the most credit for changing the Badger culture. When Richter arrived in 1989, the football was at the level of Northwestern's and basketball wasn't quite as embarrassing, but wasn't remotely competitive consistently. Richter hired Alvarez and Dick Bennett and then made the politically difficult, but clearly correct, move to not retain Soderberg and go out and get Bo Ryan. Pat Richter created the foundation that Alvarez has maintained to make Wisconsin's major sports teams relevant and competitive without resorting to OSU or SEC-level ethical issues.
Alvarez's major AD decisions have not been as good as Richter, but have been overall a positive. He retained Greg Gard which is a source of constant debate on this board. For football, he hired Bielema (successful but complicated), Gary Andersen (a disaster), and then Paul Chryst (outstanding).
Read “From Red Ink to Roses”. It chronicles those days.
The pinko Donna Shalala had a hand in the turn around too.
@MichiganPacker2 posted:She was not allowed to go outside at night when Barry had parties there because of what she might see or hear (and she is by no means a prude).
Screaming parrots.
@Pikes Peak posted:Read “From Red Ink to Roses”. It chronicles those days.
The pinko Donna Shalala had a hand in the turn around too.
Ah, Donna Shalala WAS THE REASON BUCKY GOT THINGS TURNED AROUND............ ...SHE STARTED IT ALL. 👏🏻 👍 ❤️ And I forgot about Pat Richter as well. He lived right across the street from us......
@Blair Kiel posted:He had a Lombardi-like impact on that program. As a child of the sad, sad, 60's, 70's and 80's Badger sports programs...what a 30 year run that man brought to us.
Isn't that the truth. I can remember as a kid living just outside of GB the only time we got to see the Badgers FB on TV was Sunday mornings on PBS they had a tape delay of the game. It also was pretty routine to see them get mauled by OSU and Michigan by scores like 63-7. I don't remember much about the BB teams in that era but I think they were pretty terrible as well.
Then Barry comes along and in 92 shows what might be coming and then the next year not only do they win 10 games they go to the damn Rose Bowl. Then as the AD he gets the BB team rolling as well.
So for the next AD I hear some chatter about Chryst being a good choice. I obviously don't know what he is like behind the scenes but I think UW needs a more powerful figure to represent them to the Big Ten.
To me, Pat Richter was the guy that turned around UW athletics. He also had the vision when and how to make the right moves to build and expand the football and basketball programs.
Barry is a bit of enigma and IMO he gets a lot more credit than he deserves. To often, he makes it all about himself and he’s been far from the model citizen throughout his tenure. That being said, he was instrumental in building the football program and his confidence and swagger was exactly what they needed at the time. He bottled and sold hope - and he had a knack for delivering big wins when it mattered most. That translated to ticket sales and building the season ticket holder list.
I think Barry has been more than effective later in his career because his presence can be a bit overpowering to others within the program, and he’s been much more out of sight and I think that’s a good thing.
By the way, someone mentioned Rick Telander’s book From Red Ink to Roses. It’s a fantastic read and takes an in-depth look behind the curtain in the early days of the rebuild coming full circle to the Rose Bowl victory in 1993.
I like Chryst as a coach, not sure about him as AD. For all his faults, Barry had a big personality and charm to him, and I think you need some of that in a position like AD. From the interviews Chryst has given, I'm not sure his personality lends itself to being an AD.
@Tschmack posted:Barry is a bit of enigma and IMO he gets a lot more credit than he deserves. To often, he makes it all about himself and he’s been far from the model citizen throughout his tenure.
Just curious, in what ways has he “made it about himself”?
But I do agree generally that, like many successful organizations, the leader gets more credit than they deserve. Though I don’t know what fucking lunacy made him think Gary Anderson was a good choice for the football program. At least he recognized the mistake. He has other mistakes to recognize, too...
@Maynard posted:I like Chryst as a coach, not sure about him as AD. For all his faults, Barry had a big personality and charm to him, and I think you need some of that in a position like AD. From the interviews Chryst has given, I'm not sure his personality lends itself to being an AD.
Chris McIntosh has been Asst AD for a few years now- most think he’s getting the job.
Heard lots en lots of stories of Barry and his women.....never was ever made public because of his standing in the UW community, but he was quite the ladies man.
There are plenty of stories out there regarding Barry and his attitude and antics. He’s certainly mellowed a bit in recent history but back in the day he was a real piece of work. And I’m not even talking about the parrot incident or the womanizing.
My relatives had some interactions with him during the 1999 season and Rose Bowl and let’s just say he’s “confident” in his abilities. That picture sums up how Barry views himself. In fact, much like the statue outside of Camp Randall it was likely his idea. Part savior, part king, part hero, etc. I doubt Pat Richter would place himself in a photo shoot like that but whatever.
Flaws and all he did a lot for Wisconsin athletics and hope they pass the torch to the next best person.
Much like Brett Favre, there are a lot of stories in Madison about Barry.
Kinda par for the course for big dogs at UW, ain’t it? Maybe Chryst and Bennett are exceptions...
@Music City posted:Kinda par for the course for big dogs at UW, ain’t it? Maybe Chryst and Bennett are exceptions...
I'm guessing Gard doesn't make your "big dog" list? He doesn't have the charisma to get into that kind of "trouble" even if he was on the list.
Dick wasn't exactly charismatic and Chryst is pretty low key as well. The football team now has the profile that Chryst doesn't have to do a hard sell on a lot of guys. Joe Thomas, JJ Watt, Russell Wilson, etc. do that for the program just by being future NFL HOFers.
The basketball team never really got their Thomas/Watt/Wilson that went on the star at the next level that they could sell. Michael Finley made 2 all-star teams and Devin Harris made one, but they aren't household names.
Once the program was established nationally, Ryan had the charisma to compete for guys like Dekker, Butch, and Koenig. I think a lot of us thought Sam was going to be a future Scottie Pippen. Gard doesn't have that force of personality Ryan did. I bet Dekker wouldn't have stayed in Wisconsin when Calipari and Coach K come calling had it been Gard as the head guy.
The same traits that allowed Ryan and Alvarez to make their programs nationally elite are what got them lucky with (and in some cases in trouble because of) the ladies - confidence/arrogance, not taking no for an answer, thinking the normal rules of behavior don't apply to them.
Gard ain’t no big dog, are you kiddin? His program is falling apart.
Bielema had his share of issues on State St too. Like I said... par for the course.
@mrtundra posted:Maybe we should have a look at Barry's cell phone....
It's probably a very good thing that there weren't cell phone cameras around in the 90s during Barry's early days in Madison.
It wouldn't be as bad as looking at Favre's phone if he'd have had one in the 90s though. Favre was almost 40 when he got caught sending dick pics. Imagine what would have been on there in the mid-90s.
I think there's a lot of old NFL, NBA, and MLB players that are silently thinking thank god there weren't cameras around back then. I had college friends that had seen Majkowski show up at high school football games in the late 80s in small towns and pick up cheerleaders.
Paul Hornung would have broken the internet.
There are plenty of stories of Brett and Chewy and Frankie Donuts carousing around NE Wisconsin during the mid 90s. I mean, it wasn’t much of a secret. My favorite was a story of Brett showing up in Appleton and tending bar at one of the numerous establishments on College Ave.
No way he would have survived the scrutiny of the modern day smart phones taking pictures and videos out in the world.
