And Greenspan was supposed to bring a little bit of stability to IU's athletic program after a long term of turmoil, at least until president Adam Herbert hired Kelvin Sampson for him and Greenspan then had to spend two years keep covering Sampson's @$$ ... something he mishandled pretty badly this fall & winter.
Greenspan won't get the credit for it, but some big things happened under his watch -- some much-needed facility upgrades (closing in the north end of Memorial Stadium with a football office/weights facility underneath a new tier of seats, a basketball practice facility, renovations to the bb & sb diamonds, which were hardly high-school quality). While it didn't work out due to circumstances beyond everyone's control, he hired Terry ***ppner, the single-best athletic department hire IU has made since bringing in Bob Knight and promoting Jerry Yeagley's soccer program to varsity status in the early 1970s.
Greenspan made two huge mistakes besides the handling of the Sampson fiasco. He hired Sharon Versyp for wbb (initially a good hire) and didn't give her a buyout clause, allowing her to walk away to arch-rival Purdue for nothing one year later, and then passing on Kevin Borseth to pick Felicia Leggette-Jack to replace Versyp. L-J has done a nice job, but Borseth is a helluva coach and was much more of a known commodity at the time (but he had something against him -- a Y chromosome attempting to coach major-college women's basketball). His hire of Tracy Smith to take over the baseball team has also been pretty widely-praised.
IU's athletic departnment has been a wreck ever since Ralph Floyd passed away 20 years ago. Knight toadie Clarence Doninger was ineffective at best (he almost never fired even an incompetent coach -- but let Myles Brand can Bill Mallory -- the facilities didn't get much better, he eventually turned on Knight), Michael McNeeley was a disaster (two words say it all -- Gerry DiNardo), and a university VP ended up being interim AD for more than a year before Greenspan was hired. A lot of the people charged for compliance, for example, came aboard during the Doninger years, when incompetence was rampant.
Not coincidentally, the slide also seemed to coincide with Myles Brand's hiring. To call him a spotlight-seeking attention hound would be putting it nicely.
