GChatting the Eagles: Gene's entirely comprehensive and Spaz-less discussion of BC athletics

percDM: Last night, Gene came to Chicago. It was a pleasant evening for all, with the only tense time coming from your question and the subsequent back and forth.

i'm sorry, the only tense time besides the BU-inspired lacrosse question

timstwrt: and "when are we going to get a neutral site hockey game in chicago, so that the fifty people in this room can go to a game?"

percDM: gene had to take that one seriously because it came from a trustee

which is how we got to the discussion of a neutral site game with ND at MSG

  which would never happen in league play

one question that was selfish in nature that led to an interesting answer was "When we will see more football games scheduled against teams like Notre Dame and Northwestern?"

  now, the guy asking loses points for not knowing about the series with ND

but, it got interesting when Gene said that we won't play teams like northwestern because with 9 ACC games and ND, we need two games we can win

  that makes sense, but its disappointing for two reasons

  1. our program has fallen to the point that we can't expect to beat northwestern

2. we're going to play two incredibly bad teams every year, and we won't get anymore interesting matchups like northwestern and Stanford

timstwrt: it doesn't really bother me

  i think it makes sense

  he can't control the conference schedule

percDM: i'd just prefer one easy game

timstwrt: i don't think it's just a "bad teams" thing....we also need the home games

  we can get home-only series with teams like umass

  that's revenue

percDM: yeah, but games against umass and toledo aren't going to pack the seats

but i guess i couldn't complain about an ooc schedule that was nd, army, and umass

what was your number 1 takeaway from last year's football season? apparently gene's was that our players weren't physically or mentally tough enough.

timstwrt: but that he addressed the #1 concern....strength and conditioning coach

i did not expect Jason Loscalzo to be the fall guy for our terrible football team

percDM: to gene's credit, he did make it clear that football's performance was unacceptable

  and he did say coaches should be evaluated after 3 or 4 years

something that struck me was how much the people in the room had embraced the cupboard was bare arguments for football and basketball

timstwrt: if you don't follow it that closely, you probably just believe it

percDM: what was the most interesting part of the night for you?

timstwrt: the non-denial of the heslip story...it'd be very easy for him to say, "no one told him he couldn't play in the ACC," but instead he just said, "he and steve had a meeting." that tells me that the story's true, and donahue really fucked that situation up

  back to the stupid lacrosse question, which was stupid

what sort of alum cares about his alma mater having lacrosse? i understand why a 17 year old lacrosse player might want BC to have D1 lacrosse, but why would a 27 year old alum care?

percDM: regular season lacrosse games trump tournament hockey games

  at least they do on espnu

timstwrt: "this is the most pressing concern for our athletic department, despite the horrible records we have in revenue sports"

percDM: yeah, what a waste of a question

  especially since there were only like 10 questions allowed

i feel like we should have had to submit our questions in advance

defilippo was engaging last night, and he didn't seem to shy away from tough questions. however, a few things stood out to me:

1. he made this big long speech about how college basketball attendance and ratings are down and he is worried for the sport, and then when asked about bc attendance, he said it was up

 i watched quite a few bc home games this year, and conte forum was dead

2. in response to your heslip and ravenel question, he said, "Don't believe what you read in the papers; believe what I'm telling you."

if we were there to be dicks, we should have interjected with a question about the health of rogers

timstwrt: as always, gene was personally very engaging and likable. and he bashed uconn, which is always welcome. it's amazing to me that the head football coach was literally not mentioned once, by anyone. he's like the alcoholic uncle whose existence no one wants to acknowledge

Questions For Gene DeFilippo

Our esteemed Director of Athletics, Gene DeFilippo, is making occasional stops across the country to speak to alums about the state of Boston College sports.  The editors of Marooned Gold anticipate that he's got some pretty standard pat answers/faux enthusiasm prepared for the fusillade of "Spaz sucks!" headed his way.  So we (and hopefully you) will be taking the other front in this war: basketball.  Any/ all of these questions should be asked:


"Even if we assume the athletic department-leaked assertion that Skinner was a lazy recruiter, doesn't it seem fair to imagine that last year's team with Skinner, Reggie, Rakim, Ravenel, Heslip, etc. was well-positioned to make a 2006-like run in the tournament, one that could have boosted recruiting for years to come?"


"What do you think Tyrese Rice means when he tweets that he probably won't set foot on BC's campus again and that people have no idea what's going on behind closed doors?  Is it a sign of a healthy program when one of your greatest recent players goes public with his dissatisfaction?" 



"The ugly, un-fan-friendly style of the Skinner flex offense was cited by you as a reason why attendance at BC home games was subpar.  How was attendance this season?  Was it boosted by the offensive fireworks featured in perfomances like the completely unwatchable NC State game?"


"Did you or Coach Donahue tell Brady Heslip that he was 'not good enough for the ACC (comments),' and did you enjoy watching Heslip carry #3 seed Baylor to the Sweet Sixteen with nine threes last week?"


"Does it bother you or Coach Donahue that the three best Boston College NCAA basketball players this season were playing for other schools?"


"Over the last five years, what's your biggest mistake?  I'll give you a second to rank them."