Haters gonna hate... and I see so many of the old bunch back to revel in the Echo Chamber of Contempt. Even from folks whose insights I routinely enjoy
Having known the man pretty well, he was not a legitimate object of hatred. Tried his best, had some big ups and some clear downs.
But everyone seems to forget this: Perhaps no figure was better seated to opine intelligently on the merits of Steve P's efforts than Beano Cook. Beano was loudly on record as stating that Steve saved the football program at Pitt. Nothing less. And this was not an exercise in hype.
I'm not compelled to enumerate his logic here, but Beano at the time explained just how precarious was the state of Pitt football upon SP's arrival - and we're competitive in a Power 5 Conference today, having secured the program's future.
Mistakes and missteps granted, not too bad a legacy.
But let the hatred resume...
There were 3 times where the immediately past administration fought off the ruination of Pitt football as a major collegiate program.
1) In 1995-97 there were internal university forces at work that wanted to deemphasize football down to 1AA or Temple-like type program because of how much of a financial and infrastructure mess the athletic department ...and actually the entire university... was at the time. Football was gushing money, and needed major financial investments to bring it up to competitive levels with its peers and the money simply wasn't anywhere to be found... not from the university which was having trouble filling beds, not from what few donors that were left and especially coming off the heels of completely failed fundraising campaigns for Pitt Stadium, and certainly not from ticket revenue which was non-existent. Heck, a 1997 $1 million scoreboard upgrade at Pitt Stadium caused major internal raucous. This was one of the reasons that decisions were made to move forward with facility upgrades partnering with outside organizations like UPMC and Plan B instead of the university struggling along on its own accord, which could have been a disaster with the conference upheaval that was unknowingly coming down the pike.
2) 2003-2004 when the ACC raided the Big East and the conference was on the verge of collapse and removal (by design of the ACC) from the BCS structure. Nordenberg assumed defacto leadership of the Big East football schools as Tranghese was essentially relegated to a bystander due to his position straddling both the basketball and football factions. Nordenberg is directly responsible for the conference retaining its status as a BCS conference and was credited with such by all of the football school leadership at the time.
3) 2010-2011, the latest and perhaps final conference realignment phase, when the past administration actively worked to secure Pitt's place in a Power 5 conference. Swofford has publicly credited the experience and leadership of both Nordenberg and Pederson with getting Pitt into the ACC. Add to that, without the prior decade of facility upgrades that were undertaken in spite of a lack of financial resources, Pitt does not get into the ACC... period. If Pitt doesn't get into a Power 5 conference in 2011, it is done as a major athletic program. Moving into the ACC is the single most important thing that has happened to Pitt athletics in the past 40 years.
For all the errors and mishires made along the way that might have kept Pitt athletics from winning at its maximum potential, these people were in the right place at the right time to keep Pitt as a major player in athletics, which by far was fundamentally the most critical challenge over the prior 15 years.
