Big Nole booster cashes in his chips; Circus flags at half staff

NovaGator

Well-Known Member
Dec 10, 2015
631
561
Prominent FSU contributor Albert J. Dunlap dies
13 comments
An important benefactor of Florida State sports passes on.
By David Visser@DavidBVisser Jan 26, 2019, 1:15pm EST


Share

Judy_and_Al_Dunlap.0.jpg

Judy and Al Dunlap
The Florida State community has lost a devoted supporter, as Albert J. Dunlap has passed away at the age of 81. You don’t have to have known Dunlap to be well aware of the immense contributions he and his wife, Judy, have made to FSU.

Florida State football’s $15-million indoor practice facility is named the Albert J. Dunlap Athletic Training Facility because of a lead gift of $5 million made by the Dunlaps. The Seminoles’ two outdoor practice fields adjacent to that structure are also known as the Al Dunlap Football Practice Fields, and the pair were instrumental in creating the Albert J. and Judith A. Dunlap Student Success Center.

In 2016, another $5-million donation to Florida State Athletics resulted in the renaming of the premium seating in Doak Campbell Stadium’s south endzone the Albert J. and Judith A. Dunlap Champions Club (abbreviated Dunlap Champions Club).

And in 2018, the Dunlaps made another massive donation to FSU Athletics, contributing a $20-million lead gift to Florida State’s $100-million Unconquered Campaign, which includes the the $60-million Football Operations Building scheduled to open in July of 2021. All told, the Dunlaps have contributed more than $40 million to Seminole Athletics.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Any truth to the rumor that he has left $100 million to FSU in his will for their stand-alone football facility?
 

kepler

Founding Member
Senior Member
Lifetime Member
Jun 16, 2014
761
829
Founding Member
read his book years ago. As a man who always focused on ROI, he probably didn't appreciate his massive financial gift to FSU right as the product on the field is tanking.
 

78

Founding Member
Dazed and Confused
Lifetime Member
Jun 9, 2014
19,745
27,635
Founding Member
You should read Chainsaw Al's bio on Wiki. Not exactly an illustrious career.

It leads off with:

"He was barred from serving as an officer of a publicly traded corporation in the United States. His widespread layoffs and accounting frauds have put him on several lists of worst CEOs. He donated millions to Florida State University."

Two peas in a pod.

:snicker:
 

oxrageous

Founding Member
It's Good to be King
Administrator
Jun 5, 2014
36,936
97,631
Founding Member
This is one those guys that is such a fanboi that he gets rich and gives tons of money to a school just so they'll name stuff after him and give him access. If those perks weren't part of the deal, he wouldn't have ever given a penny to the school.

In other words, the contributions weren't given for the betterment FSU, they were for the betterment of him.
 

78

Founding Member
Dazed and Confused
Lifetime Member
Jun 9, 2014
19,745
27,635
Founding Member
This is one those guys that is such a fanboi that he gets rich and gives tons of money to a school just so they'll name stuff after him and give him access. If those perks weren't part of the deal, he wouldn't have ever given a penny to the school.
That's exactly what it is. The dude's from freaking Hoboken, NJ. He had zero relationship with FSU until 1995.
 

78

Founding Member
Dazed and Confused
Lifetime Member
Jun 9, 2014
19,745
27,635
Founding Member
A great time to jump on the bandwagon. :rolleyes3:
Well, except for that dip in the road a year later. Chainsaw Al probably hated driving behind all those Gator plates in Ocala.
 

Thick&ThinG8r

Member
Lifetime Member
Aug 21, 2014
2,601
4,262
Good thing he was on his death bed or he would have spent what he had left keeping jimbo around.
 

78

Founding Member
Dazed and Confused
Lifetime Member
Jun 9, 2014
19,745
27,635
Founding Member
No offense, but we sold our law school name to a mafia attorney and ambulance chaser.
This was one helluva donnybrook. I should have paid more attention.

One letter to the then dean of the law school read: "I have no problem with naming the law school in honor of an appropriate person, as other colleges have done, but naming our college after Fred Levin does no honor to him, to the institution, or its constituency, and demeans the efforts of the many deans, faculty, and alumni who have worked for so many years to achieve the vision of making our college one of the top twenty law schools. . . . You degraded the image and prestige of the University of Florida College of Law by selling its good name to Fred Levin, a lawyer who has been castigated by the courts for abusing the rules, and is notorious for commercializing the practice, thumbing his nose at the bar, and otherwise manipulating the system." In response, Levin told the press: "Two hundred years from now the great, great, great grandchildren (of my critics) will be getting their law degrees from a school with my name on it. It's a good feeling.

"It makes me feel great, when their great-grandchildren go up to that stage to get the law degree, they'll know that, dadgum it, that Jew's name is up there on the damn diploma. It's just gotta eat at them."
 

RiverRat

Glass half full
Lifetime Member
Nov 1, 2017
3,243
7,267
I wasted way too much time reading about a dead Nole now Im writing about him, oh well better him than me.
 

gardnerwebbgator

Founding Member
Aight Then
Lifetime Member
Jun 19, 2014
9,549
15,615
Founding Member
I'd rather focus on the 130 or so that died yesterday from an opoid overdose and try to deal with that epidemic than some crooked Nole who has found out, more likely the hard way, that you can't take ill gotten, or any other wealth, with you.
 

Gator By Marriage

A convert to Gatorism
Lifetime Member
Dec 31, 2018
14,785
27,967
You should read Chainsaw Al's bio on Wiki. Not exactly an illustrious career.

It leads off with:

"He was barred from serving as an officer of a publicly traded corporation in the United States. His widespread layoffs and accounting frauds have put him on several lists of worst CEOs. He donated millions to Florida State University."

Two peas in a pod.

:snicker:
Out of curiosity I read the entry. It also contained this classic from John Byrne, the editor of the business magazine Fast Company: "In all my years of reporting, I had never come across an executive as manipulative, ruthless, and destructive as Al Dunlap. Until the Securities and Exchange Commission barred him from ever serving as an officer of a public corporation, Dunlap sucked the very life and soul out of companies and people. He stole dignity, purpose, and sense out of organizations and replaced those ideals with fear and intimidation."
It is sad how universities will take just about anyone's money. I always think of the line from "Back to School" where, in response to the business professor's question of why they admitted Rodney Dangerfield's character, the university president responds, "it was a really big check."
 

78

Founding Member
Dazed and Confused
Lifetime Member
Jun 9, 2014
19,745
27,635
Founding Member
Out of curiosity I read the entry. It also contained this classic from John Byrne, the editor of the business magazine Fast Company: "In all my years of reporting, I had never come across an executive as manipulative, ruthless, and destructive as Al Dunlap. Until the Securities and Exchange Commission barred him from ever serving as an officer of a public corporation, Dunlap sucked the very life and soul out of companies and people. He stole dignity, purpose, and sense out of organizations and replaced those ideals with fear and intimidation."
It is sad how universities will take just about anyone's money. I always think of the line from "Back to School" where, in response to the business professor's question of why they admitted Rodney Dangerfield's character, the university president responds, "it was a really big check."
They call those types corporate raiders. Paul Bilzerian and Frank Lorenzo come to mind. Eddie Lampert did it to Sears. He's still trying to suck blood out of the corpse.
 
Last edited:

Users who are viewing this thread

Help Users

You haven't joined any rooms.