SouthTexGopher wrote:I don't know the guy...I've never met him and I have no strong feelings on him.
That said, I've heard and read people say that he sat on his hands while the WCHA began to fall apart. From 2000 miles away, it's hard to debate that.
Sure. But by the same token (and to continue the discussion), how is the WCHA supposed to compete with the B1G? You simply cannot, and McLeod is no idiot-- he knew that he couldn't stop the B1G from taking MN and WI when it came down with an edict to protect Penn State. His option at that time was to permit the B1G to play more games against one another-- however, at the expense of more games against conference competition? That would mean the B1G schools wouldn't play as many conference games, I suppose-- which is untenable to even keep a conference at that spot. The math simply doesn't work. And if you expect that MN and WI are supposed to keep all of their nonconference games simply for B1G, well, that isn't going to work either. At the end of the day, I can only assume he did what he could in the face of a Toyota versus a Freight Train-- you get out of the way and live to play another day.
Being realistic, you cannot compete with a media deal when the real media driver (Minnesota) and another of the top three (Wisconsin) are both going to be called by the B1G. So what is he supposed to do? Require that UND share some of their media revenue with WI to keep Bucky happy? Yeah, that would go over well.
At the end of the day, some people's (I am looking at those in Grand Forks here) expectations of McLeod appear to be unrealistic. About the best thing he could hope for was to protect the WCHA's existing revenue stream in keeping the Final Five at the X and seeking to protect all the conference's home game income in potentially getting a scheduling arrangement with B1G schools. But the idea that he could, given the tools he had and has at his disposal, talk MN and WI out of the B1G is completely laughable.
Being fair to him also, the UMD wrestling situation, while tragic and illustrative of some shady stuff, has very little bearing on his role of commissioner. It is not a very flattering view toward him, but at the same time, there have been no allegations that he has done anything even close to that in the WCHA.
While some have made the claim that the WCHA has been able to succeed in spite of him, (and, to an extent I agree-- the WCHA has done very well for itself over the past 10 years)-- it is really one-sided not to give him any credit to putting the conference in this position 15 years ago. It was the assimilation of St. Cloud State, UAA and Mankato in the 1990s-- not to mention absorbing the loss of Northern Michigan in 1997-- that made the conference what it is now, which all principally occurred under his watch. Not to mention, forming a dominant women's conference that has seen one of three member schools win EVERY women's national championship to date-- again, that is impressive. Hard to say if all of that was in his master plan, but in fairness to him-- since it happened under his watch (and he didn't screw it up), he deserves some credit.
It sounds like I really like McLeod-- in truth, I have never even met him and don't really know much about him other than what I have read or seen in interviews. But this whole thing of making him out to be the bad guy here just doesn't make much sense without any evidence of true mismanagement or a reprise of the UMD wrestling situation. And that has not occurred.
Again, part of me thinks the McLeod situation is all a UND conspiracy to try to claim a bigger share of the pie in ways that the BSUs and MTUs could not afford. As such, they wanted him gone because he was likely sticking up for the little guys and a historical, even share between teams. Does that mean I think that he deserves more time? No-- I leave that to the discretion of the conference teams. But the fact that none other than UND and apparently DU called for his head does address the remainder of the conference's feelings about him.
Hammy" has spoken I guess that ends it... 
