News/views: Amodio out as Duquesne AD

Let's hope the new AD and administration place some attention and focus on the basketball program. It would be nice to care about the Dukes again.

Duquesne undergraduate and graduate alum myself. Couldn't agree more, unfortunately. Quite a few seem self-imprortants seem to be employed there, who are not at all concerned about the future of their students. Sadly, my graduate school experience with those types of professors and administrators hardened my views on this school.

As a recent, former student-athlete and graduate of Duquesne, I could not agree with you more. It's very satisfying to me that you've taken the time to do this story, as the problems you've referenced in this article, and previous ones on this topic, were so glaringly obvious from the athlete's perspective for my entire tenure at Duquesne. The mishandling of the basketball program, and all of the athletic programs for that matter, was very upsetting. But more upsetting was the flat out disrespect towards other athletes, my teammates, and myself that I witnessed first hand from two of the individuals above. Seeing these things happen, and the general feeling of disapproval that those two men cast over some teams, made it difficult at times to want to complete for the D on your chest.

I think it's a bit sad that the story I've read about Duquesne athletics that has made me the happiest is one about the AD being fired. Here's to hoping the next one does a better job. Thnx DK

Good riddance I'm also an embarrassed alum bravo for telling it like it is.....

Unfortunately he's done a ton of damage but the first step was to get him on the first bus out of town.

Full disclosure. Me too. Best damn news I've heard in forever.

Pitt alum here.
This move was LONG overdue.
Now fix things on the Bluff.
Pay attention to Xavier, Providence, etc.
It CAN be done........... will it be?

Hey DK,

Duquesne alum here, too. I was on campus when the programs were abolished, and it was a truly embarrassing scene. Students on A-Walk begging for money and a voice to save their respective programs.

I don't pretend to know more about this than you, but one thing I can say is that Hogan isn't all bad. He's one of the reasons I was able to graduate. on multiple occasions, he gave me "scholarships" in his own name. If you were a good student (I graduated summa cum laude) Hogan was able to help you. The crazy part is that I hardly knew the man. I made an appointment in his office and he asked me a few questions. After that, he would give me the scholarships.

He's one reason a poor kid from the Northside was able to graduate.

*Note: I was not an athlete at Duquesne.

-Patrick

Great news. Not only does the men's basketball program have their hands full, so does the marketing department for the athletic department.

An AD that kills sports!! Classic

I can't even remember when Duquesne was relevant in men's basketball. I go back to the days of Willie Somerset, the Nelsons, Bill Zopf and the under appreciated Ron Guziak. When Red Manning retired the program went down hill. They passed over coaches like Gary Williams because of money.

The new AD has to be better.

I remember going to the Civic arena to watch Duquesne basketball, the Nelson twins playing. They had a great team and great to watch. Went to a few of their games back then.

Thank you for covering this! As the son of a very proud double Duquesne alum, and a big college hoops fan, I am very interested in the subject.

DK, I wonder could the timing here be a double-edged sword? Its fantastic that Amodio is gone, but will the new AD be hired by these other two jokers before they leave the school? When you said previously that they were both getting ready to leave themselves, my hope was that the incoming president would then clean house.

We will probably have to see white smoke from Old Main to know who the new AD is; pray it is--has to be--better than this clown. Quinnipiac is best known for political polling, so this sure isn't a career builder for Amodio.

Need a great AD, but they also need support. And in Duquesne's case, a good deal of patience because it seems to be a culture thing at this point. Just look at the lack of true support Pitt had been getting for the last few decades. You gotta have resources to compete with in recruiting, and it goes beyond the AD.

Amodio———the Jack Kevorkian of college Athletic Directors.

He killed baseball (an excellent program), wrestling (a good program), swimming, golf, took away the salary of the Pep Band Director (a place for non-athletes to excel in the spotlight at athletic events), the Tamburitzans (until they escaped his grasp), and placed men's basketball in a canvas bag and held it under water for 6 years. Watch out, Quinnipiac athletes!

Welcome back to the Pittsburgh sports scene, Duquesne athletics!!

Men's soccer was A10 Champs for 3 years running around the time Amodio took the AD job. He screwed that up too.

DK - love the Mossie Murphy reference. I'm a DU Journalism '83 grad and have been so disappointed with the athletic program (especially men basketball) over the past years. I really hope things improve!

It's unbelievable Duquesne canned baseball. I hope the new AD wakes up and brings it back. The WAY that DU (mid-school year) dumped baseball was terrible, too. ME, 2006

Program-level stories like this are the kind of college coverage that I like to see from this site. I know DK asked the question in the Saturday Site Stuff, but I was struggling to quantify what I thought should be covered. This article is a great example of what I was thinking. Keep up the good work, boys!

Duquesne has a basketball team?

Well that's 2/3 of the Bad Luck Schleprock triumvarite gone and this undergrad and grad alum is glad. I still have reservations on Ferry being good coach, though. He has never once had a team below 200 in defensive efficiency, even his two LIU tourney teams. He has proven he can't coach defense as he stayed in the same 2/3 zone last year, even when it was getting shredded by other teams getting wide open looks on 3 pointers. In fact two of their big wins last year were courtesy of the other team having abysmal nights from beyond the stripe. And then he blamed his personnel for not being able to play man to man defense, despite the fact that this was year 3 and he was the one who recruited them.

This is great news. I hope there is some quality rebuilding of the Athletics department.

I really hope he doesn't wipe out Quinnipiac's D1 hockey's team. There aren't enough as it is. And the smaller schools excelling at hockey is always fantastic to watch.

Hopefully they bring wrestling back.. So much talent in the area, it'd be crazy if they didn't

Let's see.. Looking for a D1 program in The Pittsburgh area that wins and has strong administration support - DK, please start covering RMU!

I'm not a Duquesne alum so I have no axe to grind, but did go to see their mens hoops a lot in the 60's & 70's. It would indeed be great to see them re-gain a bit of their past glory ('77 was last NCAA bid).

I'm just wondering if the sports that were cut had to be due to some budget issue such that it was either those sports or other sports. With Title IX, there needs to be equal $$ spent on men's & women's sports.
I imagine the football program eats-up a lot of $$ (I don't remember a football program from back in the day). I don't know their financial circumstances, but it would seem that whatever sports were cut (likely due to funding) would piss-off some segment of the university, so it was a list of all bad choices to select from.

I spent almost 30 years on the DU faculty. Watched the demise of the bb program up close. It was a failure of leadership from the very top and it started with President who otherwise did an excellent job leading the university. Unfortunately, he didn't know if a basketball was stuffed or inflated. He put Fr hogan in charge of the program who had not a clue about D1 basketball. Fr hogan is a good and compassionate priest who was over his head, put there by a president who couldn't care less about D1 sports. The hole was dug so deep that it will take a Herculean effort to resurrect it but it can be done. As a former faculty member, season ticket holder and alumnus I hope it happens.

Regarding my previous post, the president I was referring to was the late John Murray.

I remember going to all the Duquesne games at the Duquesne Gardens. That's when they have the Ricketts and Tucker brothers, Sihugo Green. They played St. Bonaventure, Niagara, St. Francis (Maurice Stokes), and Dayton with Bill Uhl. I can spell the school name because of the students spelling it Du qu ensue.

My cousin went there and when he was in the Army in Texas and mentioned Duquesne, they said it was that Black school up North.

A real pity going from the top team in the late 40's (Chuck Cooper) to the teams in the 50's.

DK - Please keep the Duquesne coverage coming. Have been embarrassed on a yearly basis for the past 10 years, as a spectator to away games where the Dukes get pummeled by DC-area teams. It is humiliating.

Cutting 4 sports teams and firing a coach who let the team to the post-season are cringe-worthy facts, yes, but how could you screw up a program so badly that good players end up at St. Bonaventure in OLEAN, NY rather than the beautiful city of Pittsburgh?

We can only hope this means good things ahead. Thanks for the coverage.

Dr. Dougherty is an excellent administrator but in my opinion a poor leader. So far he has hidden behind a recycled news release (same one issued after he let Brian Colleary's contract expire), not willing to show support for the program, the coach, or as you said, the brand. This is disappointing and discouraging.

John Murray put Hogan in charge of athletics...a priest in charge of D1 basketball. (Obviously not a good move.) But that was roughly 20 years ago. Hogan had nothing to do with the team for at least 14 or so years. It should be noted that Hogan helped get the money to build Palumbo, so I really doubt his goal was to destroy athletics/basketball.

The university was in a terrible financial state and a lot of upheaval when Murray took over...his goal was to not go broke/close down the place and not the athletics program. The recent history of the program has much more to do with Amodio and the university's priorities (for better or worse).

The basketball program stinks, but the school is tier 1 now and it was a tier 2/3. The endowment has grown over 100 million dollars, I know this as an alum and basketball faithful who donates to the program in hopes of making it better. To say the university's brand has diminished is not very accurate. Someone else pointed out on here athletics is the main point of college. Given the university's solid academic/financial standing now this seems like a positive turn and can hopefully complete the puzzle of a university and program we all care enough about to share our opinions on here.

DK!

It has been almost two months since you posted this article. Have you heard any progress in the hunt for a new AD?

As a current Duquesne pharmacy student, previous high school golfer (who would have enjoyed the competitive nature of collegiate golf given that the program remained--I would have attempted to walk on if I wanted it), as well as past member of the Duq athletics pep band, I have seen first-hand how things have progressed downhill in the 4 years that I have spent at Duquesne. I wish that all athletic programs at Duquesne were better represented through student interest, but unfortunately with the potentially most exciting sport in basketball being complete garbage in recent years, it is extremely difficult to hope that a strong student fan-base would emerge, such as the Oakland Zoo from our friends down Forbes Avenue.

I am only curious! I know that you will certainly be on top of it when a decision is made by the University for the next AD.