The Syracuse football program is in a historic period of chaos and disarray. Having won just eight games in the past three years, the Orange is struggling through one of the least fruitful stretches in its storied history. And with a problem as grand as this one, there’s certainly plenty of finger pointing to go around. SU football fans have directed their collective wrath on three main sources: Chancellor Nancy Cantor, Athletic Director Daryl Gross and football Head Coach Greg Robinson. Many have expressed their frustrations creatively, branding these three as the new ‘Axis of Evil.’ This article is the first in a series that will go in-depth and examine the facts and statistics behind each candidate. And what better place to start off with than the top SU official, Chancellor Cantor.
Chancellor Cantor began her duties as Syracuse chancellor in the fall of 2004. A native New Yorker, she received degrees from Sarah Lawrence College and Stanford University. She spent most of her early years at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, but left in 1991 to pursue an opportunity at Princeton University. She then returned to the Midwest not long after, eventually becoming provost at UM. From there, she accepted the chancellor position at the University of Illinois in Champagne. She served as chancellor for three years before heading back to her home state of New York. She started her current job as chancellor of Syracuse University in the fall of 2004.
Upon arriving, Chancellor Cantor made many noticeable changes. Longtime athletic director Jake Crouthamel was replaced by the young, up-and-coming Dr. Daryl Gross. This move preceded a coaching change in the football program. It had fallen off the radar a bit in the previous three years, leading to Paul Pasqualoni’s dismissal. Gross would ultimately make his first big splash as AD with the hiring of defensive guru Greg Robinson to take Coach P’s place.
Anyhow, I digress back to the chancellor. She has a long-established track record of fighting for diversity, racial justice and integration. She played a critical role in the 2003 Supreme Court cases Grutter and Gratz. While at Illinois, she fostered a friendly campus, one that looked to strengthen ties with its surrounding community instead of distancing itself. At Syracuse, she has done the same. Under her watch, initiatives including, most prominently, the Connective Corridor, have enabled SU to play a larger role than ever in the daily life of its host city. While Syracuse has long been cited as a city on the decline, Cantor has used the financial assets of the university to reach out to the community, beginning initiatives with local high schools, volunteer groups and other organizations. But many make the case that SU athletics has suffered greatly since her coronation as chancellor. But just what do the facts say?
Cantor and Gross like to trumpet the fact that the athletic program is improving overall. Let’s see what the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics has to say in its prestigious Directors’ Cup scoring. Just seven years ago, Syracuse finished 65th in these prestigious rankings, totaling 274 points in the 2001-02 year. Since then, Syracuse has plummeted, bottoming out at 110th place in 2007, finishing with 147 points, barely half of what they had just over a half decade before. In the 2007-08 year, the stats actually back up the claims, as the ‘Cuse rose over twenty spots in one year, finishing with 221.5 points. They were buoyed by the strength of a men’s lacrosse national title, but still finished around the likes of teams like Albany (a SUNY school for crying out loud!) and Northern Arizona (bonus points if you know their nickname without looking it up).
Despite a recent lacrosse national title, SU has suffered in the sports that generate the most revenue: football and men’s basketball. After their 2003 national title with Carmelo Anthony, the Orange has slowly regressed to a middle-of-the-pack Big East team, garnering back-to-back NIT invitations and bowing out in the quarterfinals. Jim Boeheim, however, has SU basketball on the way back up. Evidenced by the signing of Brandon Triche and the pursuit of Taran Buie, Doron Lamb and other hot blue-chip prospects in the Northeast, SU basketball is on the rise. On a side note, it would be a miracle if they don’t dance this year.
The football team, however, is a different story. They went 16-20 in Coach P’s final three years, but have since become the laughingstock of the country. This problem is isolated to this sport because of a rash hire Gross made to make a good first impression with SU fans; unfortunately, it hasn’t quite worked out the way The Good Doctor intended.
As for Cantor, one cannot deny the athletic program’s struggles under her. But, overall it does appear to be on the rise. Early on in this year, women’s field hockey and both soccer teams, amongst others are among the top teams in the nation. The men’s and women’s lacrosse teams should be a serious contender this year, while both basketball teams could find themselves playing far into the postseason. But why believe my rambling rhetoric? Facts are facts and Cantor’s track record at previous programs speaks for itself. Michigan and Illinois had a couple of strangely skewed statistics, but experienced a relatively similar level of success under Cantor than they did both before and after her tenure.
Cantor’s run as provost of Michigan ran roughly through the last half of the 1990s. During her entire second stay at the school (1995-2001), the football team, guided coincidentally by the notorious Lloyd Carr, accrued three 10-win seasons and one Rose Bowl berth. In 1997, the Wolverines turned in an unbeaten campaign, earning AP national champion honors. For you number crunchers out there, Michigan had a 25-8-3 record in football in the three years before Cantor took the job as provost. During her last three years at Michigan, the team compiled a 29-8-0 record, while from 2001-2003, its record included 28 wins and ten losses. Those numbers are the benchmark of a consistently successful football program. In terms of the basketball program, that one is much more difficult to evaluate due to the booster scandal surrounding Chris Webber and many other prominent Wolverine players. It was discovered that they borrowed over $600,000 from booster Ed Martin. (Note: please see the graphs following the article that detail each school’s standing in the Directors’ Cup under Cantor’s watch).
The Fighting Illini, meanwhile, won their first outright Big Ten football title in eighteen years during Cantor’s first year at the school. The Ron Turner-led team made it to the Sugar Bowl, before falling 47-34 to LSU. Illinois football compiled a 16-18 record in the three years before Cantor’s arrival, went 16-20 during her tenure there and posted a 7-27 record in the three years after she left. The hiring of Ron Zook has recently re-energized the football program, however, and returned the Illini to a status near the top of their conference. The basketball program averaged 25 wins per season during Cantor’s three years, but soon spiked under the guidance of Bruce Weber and Deron Williams, making it to the national title game. They fell 75-70 to North Carolina and finished the season 37-2. With the graduation of that impressive class, Illinois has fallen off the national radar quickly. Most recently, a run to the Big Ten title game against Wisconsin could not even lift their record to .500 for the season.
Though Chancellor Cantor is very conservative when it comes to making splashy, controversial hires, the statistics do not lie. None of the three programs she has shepherded dropped off significantly during her watch. However, her hire of Dr. Daryl Gross from USC to be Syracuse’s athletic director, which seemed to fit into the status quo at the time, may now prove to be her biggest downfall.
Coming Next: Part 2 – Athletic Director Dr. Daryl Gross.
**Note that on the National Ranking graph, only the top 100 schools were shown for 2004-05 and 2005-06. Syracuse was not listed in the top 100, so is therefore not included these two years.
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