Former AD talks of future and pressures of the past

During the 2000-2001 men's basketball season, then-interim head coach Mike Davis was under the pressure to perform to the level expected from Hoosier basketball fans to maintain his job past his inaugural season. \nHe did just that, finishing third in the Big Ten regular season, runner-up in the conference tournament and earned a number four seed in the NCAA tournament.\nDavis performed under pressure from his employers, fans and the media. \nBut imagine the pressure felt from being at the helm of every sport at IU. That's what former athletics director Clarence Doninger faced for 10 years as the leader of IU sports.\n"This is a highly, highly competitive business, and as I said earlier, everybody feels that they know the answer," Doninger said. "You are in a fishbowl. I will not miss being in the fishbowl. That's not my nature anyway, but you do have that constant pressure."\nDoninger said the fact that IU has always had a successful athletics program has made his job easier, because the teams always seem to perform.\n"We've been strong in sports for years and years and years and have been the past 10 years," he said. "You always want to be better, but we've been a program that prides itself on having good sports on men and women's sides."\nBut the pressure had been on Doninger the past couple years with the firing of former basketball coach Bob Knight, poor attendance at football games and a recent report by The Herald-Times listing poor performances by IU athletics -- a report Doninger called "incomplete."\n"Our teams have been competitive in terms of Big Ten championships we've won in the past 10 years, in terms of winning the two national championships in the past 10 years," he said. "I read an article in The (Indianapolis) Star just recently about the shear standings they've been compiling since 1994, and I averaged those out and we were in the 30s out of 300 plus. Can you say that if you're in the top 10, 11, 12 percent in the nation that you're not being competitive? Of course you're being competitive."\nDoninger also noted IU's graduation success and lack of NCAA violations compared to the rest of the nation.\n"Are we at the top? No. Are we at the bottom? No. Nationally we're very competitive," he said.\nDoninger faced the most heat in September with the firing of Knight, but he said his portrayal during the situation wasn't as fair as it could have been.\n"Some people have considered me a hero, and other people have considered me a villain. I just happened to be athletics director at the time," he said. "Whenever you have a situation where you have a coach who has been so important and so powerful in so many ways, you're just going to have the situation where it's not a normal transition. It was unfortunate. It didn't have to be that way. "\nDespite the public criticism, Doninger said the support has been there, just not as noticeable as the criticism.\n"Have alumni and people around the nation supported me? The answer is yes. Most of the people who have contacted me, and it's obviously been extensive, have been very, very, very supportive."\nWhen it came to the football attendance, Doninger clearly expressed disappointment with the attendance during the past few years but said this is nothing new for IU football. Doninger mentioned how attendance was high during the Rose Bowl teams and the tenures of Lee Corso and Bill Mallory, but he also noted how attendance dwindled -- much like the present -- when those teams failed to perform. \n"(Increased attendance) will happen again, but you have to have a competitive team that is also entertaining," Doninger said. "Then the fans will come. We can't chastise fans for not coming. We do have to put the product out."\nEven though the past few years haven't been the smoothest for the Clarence Doninger era at IU, Doninger said he never thought of sending in his resignation and ending his time at IU.\n"Now that it's my first day out, it is someone else's job. Is there a relief to that? I would be less than honest if I said there was no relief," he said. "But I've never really felt (like quitting)."\nAs Doninger moves away from the Bloomington area -- he just sold his Bloomington residence -- he wanted to be sure that IU sports fans continue to look toward the future of the program, one he considers to be extremely bright.\n"We've had this tremendous history at Indiana, which includes the past 10 years," he said. "It is now time for the Indiana people to go forward and we're going to have good sports in the future, good basketball in the future. I'm a call away if I'm needed to help with the transition"