Jeremy: Maturi's contract extended

As has been well documented in this space, we are not big fans of Glen Mason, Golden Gopher Head Football coach. Another point that we have touched on, but rarely elaborated on much further, is University Athletic Director Joel Maturi. The Star Tribune article today does a nice job of outlining all of the positive impacts that Maturi has had on the Gopher Athletic Department since he arrived in 2002.
While it is obvious that Maturi has done a good job of bringing Gopher athletics, as a whole, back to a respectable level academically and has, for the most part, put academic scandels in the past, it is obvious that Maturi's main goals have been to bring the athletic department out the red and into the black financially. This means that the athletic department brings in enough money to support itself.
It is true that all of the things that Joel Maturi has accomplished as Athletic Director are good things. But I would argue, as a fan, that the one thing Maturi doesn't focus on is the one thing that could, perhaps, allow the athletic program to not only support itself, but begin to support other areas of the University.
Winning.
While all of the things that Maturi focuses on as Athletic Director are positive things, Maturi does not put an emphasis on winning. Maturi is, basically, running a business, and a successful business is one that doesn't just measure its success based on positive dollars and cents. A successful business also measure's itself on growth, and perhaps most importantly, on whether or not it is providing its buying public with a product that is worth spending money on, and a product that the public will continue to spend money on year after year. By continuing to communicate that mediocrity is acceptable, most notably with his actions, or more accurately, non-action, toward Glen Mason leading the football program, and toward Dan Monson leading the basketball program, Maturi is communicating to the fans, who support athletics with their passion and their hard earned dollars, that good enough is just that, good enough.
Joel Maturi has done a great job, also, of helping to bring Gopher Football back to campus with a new stadium that will be set to open in a few years. I do not want to give the impression that we shouldn't praise Joel Maturi for his work on these projects. But I feel the same way about Athletic Director Joel Maturi that I feel about Glen Mason. Maturi has done a fine job bringing our athletic program to where it is today, I'm just not sure he's the man to bring Gopher Athletics to the level that the University of Minnesota, and its fans, deserve.
Unfortunately for the fans the University's administration is a bit too short sighted to see the impact that winning football and basketball programs could have on the University as a whole.