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TKP game day babysitting!!!

If they got Torrian to change his mind, it'd be a power move, but my hunch without hearing the original quote is it's damage control / managing the media.

Im not discrediting your sources. Maybe Gray felt slighted. But people look at the $10k and think its a big number but to him. It was a 5% decrease from his previous salary. Imagine he made 100 grand and got the same percentage decrease. Now hes paid 95k. Nobody would even bats an eye. I really can't see a 5% decrease in pay causing a substantial rif.
And the raise for the other coach thing. They didn't work together. It's not like they were at the same place. It's like a local business getting bought out and the owner put in a management position where he takes his own team and merges it with the current team. I just can't see someone feeling like the new team got raises - there resources are substantially greater. Everyone was rehired and put on a level playing field.

I mean that very well could be the case. But I feel like people see numbers and they start telling a story. Again I'm not saying they couldn't have first hand knowledge and that's what's coming up. But for me, I have a hard time grasping that if I were to out it into a situation I could relate to.

It just doesn't add up.

Edit: grammar is impossible from an iPhone. 2. Something clearly motivated him to move elsewhere. I'm hoping it's amiacable and we can hire someone who's going to crush itand move on.

I worked for the football team for 5 years during my time as an undergrad and a grad student. I really liked TGray and he was always very personable when I talked and interacted with him. I have a small anecdote of my own to share about an experience I had with him and it is just hilarious/strange.

I played 3 summers worth of Blacksburg Town League Softball with TGray as my teammate, the dude was a combination of nuts and crazy that I haven't really met before. One Tuesday in June we were scheduled to play a game at about 6:30 pm, the forecast was calling for crazy early evening thunderstorms, the likes of which you could see rolling in from miles and miles away. But of course they couldn't cancel the game until it actually started raining and lightning. So at about 6:20 I roll up to the field, it is most definitely now lightning and the wind is picking up considerably, as I park I notice a man standing behind the backstop swinging a golf club....it was TGray. I hop outta the car and yell down to him, "Hey you do realize there are lightning strikes occurring right now?". To which, without hesitation TGray respopnds, "Yeah Mike I know, but the grip is made of rubber."

I quickly hurried back to my car and about 2 minutes later it began pouring buckets and he ran and got back in his car and we all left. To this day I am unsure if he was serious about the grip keeping him safe while swinging a lightning rod around or if he is nuts and just didn't care. I believe it was a mixture of both.

The guy was uber competitive and half crazy on the softball field as well. He wanted to play 3rd base, he would wear a mouth piece and cheat up line on every batter, he literally didn't give a shit if he got a ball hit at him at 1000 mph and would knock the ball down by any means necessary. I really think that kind of intensity is what made him a good football player and probably an even better coach. I always liked TGray and I'm sad he is leaving the VT program. He might have been crazy or immature, but whatever he was or whatever he did while in Blacksburg, the dude went full throttle, and I liked that about him.

Any-who, man I miss Blacksburg summers...

I know brother. i was just having a laugh on a rough day.

Chopped is an awesome show.

I have very little sympathy for the recruits. They are committing to a school, not a coach and certainly not a position coach.

At VT, we have been in a bubble for many years about how frequently assistant coaches move around, often just after NSD. We aren't mistreating these kids by requiring/asking our assistant coaches to stay on through NSD to complete a recruiting class....a major task in the job we pay them to do.

We will see where we end up, but when Whammy Ward left, it was shocking as well. Assistant coaches change, thats what they do. Time for VT fans to live in that reality. The stagnation of our previous staff was in large part due to assistants not moving on frequently enough.

That national data is applicable only in a very general way, and certainly much less so in cases like this.

The pay scales in this case are much higher, and the employee in far greater demand with the opportunity for substantial bumps in pay.

If I were in TG's shoes, I probably would have left years ago, and I certainly would have been looking for an exit as soon as my pay was cut. Seeing incoming coaches from a smaller school used to making far less in the way of salary benefitting from my pay cut would have sealed the deal.

As someone who has been told that in lieu of a pay raise I will get a chance at a bonus that is heavily dependent on the performance of people other than myself, I stand by my assertion that the pay cut is insulting.

In my case, at least my pay wasn't cut (although, adjusting for inflation, it was). But I would have preferred a pay raise than at bonus time to be told, "You fulfilled 100% of your metric, but the division did 75% and the company did 50% so you only get 50% of your total potential bonus".

So yeah, give me the healthy base pay upon which is the starting point of all future negotiation, and if you want to continue to compete for my services (assuming demand for my services), toss in bonuses if you simply cannot afford a pay raise.