Puppetmaster

This is Jon Oliver, the Executive Associate Athletics Director at the University of Virginia. 2013 marks his 13th season at UVA, and his job description states that he is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of the Athletics Department. Oliver oversees various Athletics Department branches, including Academics, Equipment, Game Ops, Sports Medicine, Facilities Construction, and many more. But he is best known for his role as Administrative Liaison for the Football and Men's Basketball teams.

Oliver has done some very good things while he has been here, the greatest of which seems to be hiring Tony Bennett to head up the basketball program. Oliver also oversaw the building of the new indoor practice facility, and other athletics construction projects. Oliver's time here is not without merit, but it certainly is not without fault either.

As legend has it... At the end of the 2009 campaign, UVA had had enough of the Al Groh era and elected to move on, and Jon Oliver was at the helm of the coaching search. Rumors were flying about who would be brought in to take the reigns of what had quickly turned into a dumpster fire of a program. Names bounced around like Charlie Strong - the then defensive coordinator at Florida, Al Golden - the then head coach at Temple and former UVA defensive coordinator. But one name quickly rose to the top, and that was Mike London. A young, dynamic head coach that had just lead Richmond to the 1-AA championship in 2008. He was the perfect man to help rebuild the image of UVA football. And after the administration interviewed multiple candidates and thoroughly vetted Coach London, he was hired. Let me state now that I thought, and still think, that that was the right move at the time.

But that was not what actually happened. It later came out that Coach London was in fact the only man that Jon Oliver had interviewed for the job, essentially staking his career to the ultimate success or failure that Coach London has at this school. A wildly reckless risk to take with his career, and one I think he needs to pay for.

Think about it. If your stock broker tells you to buy a stock that he says is going to work out great, and it should become the basis of your portfolio that he doesn't need to look at any others because this one is going to be perfect, and then it tanks and you lose a big chunk of your money, you get rid of your stock broker. That's where we are right now. We are staring into the abyss of another 2008 and 2009 moving forward with a coach that appears to be taking this program nowhere fast. And we're being led by a man that was so confident that this would work that he felt that we didn't need to look at anyone else. By a man that has so staked his career at this school to one coach that if he doesn't succeed, it could cost him his job. How can we trust that man to make a decision that is best for the program? My simple answer is, we can't.

He looks like an AAD right?

Jon Oliver has to go. I'm tired of seeing football decisions made by a man who doesn't know what he's doing. Oliver has done some good things here, but let's face it, in college athletics departments, football is king. Oliver's ridiculous mismanagement of the development of the program and his constant presence on the sideline and perceived meddling in coaching staff decisions needs to be done away with. This football program needs, and we as fans should demand, that a person who knows how to build a successful college football program be brought in to right this ship, because if we don't, we'll be watching Oliver rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic while the UVA football ship sinks.