This season, some of the feedback was downright vicious, coming from all areas, including the student paper, whose sports editor wrote a sermon-on-the-mount column telling Spaziani and the local media what was wrong with the way things were being run at BC.
“I view it as my duty, therefore, to keep the administration honest, especially when The Globe and The Herald refuse to do so,’’ wrote the editor.
“With the football team struggling through its worst season in over a decade, the two most prominent papers in Boston have accepted the excuses of head coach Frank Spaziani and athletic director Gene DeFilippo at face value. They have chalked up the team’s record this year to injuries, youth, and bad luck. Neither The Globe nor The Herald has criticized the decisions from the sideline.’’
Other criticism comes in Internet chat rooms, where it is easy to throw grenades without attaching a name to them.
Some critics are as disenchanted with DeFilippo and the administration - which began charging seat licensing fees and limiting tailgating - as they are with Spaziani.
It has been a tough year for the AD, whose public utterances have created a firestorm in some quarters. Much of it has come from DeFilippo simply telling the truth.
It could be a dreary winter at BC, with both the men’s and women’s basketball teams looking like bottom-feeders in the ACC. Even the men’s hockey team, which has national championship trophies on display, has hit some speed bumps.
But BC does one thing as well as anyone. It brings in good kids who become better adults. For the most part, it turns out poster boys for everything a parent wants in a child, people such as Matt Ryan, Luke Kuechly, and this year’s Scanlan Award winner, Ryan Quigley.
One thing DeFilippo did right this season was make it clear that Spaziani would remain as coach. He said it early and he said it late. No doubts, no regrets.
Go 4-8 next season, and it’s a different ballgame. Spaziani knows this as much as anyone.
He also knows that the talent pipeline is ready to produce the way it did under Tom O’Brien.
