You have my vote to be the next AD.
OT: Hobbs in trouble...
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You have my vote to be the next AD.
It is clear - I mean crystal clear - that the AD needs to have a full time PR person. Julie did this with Liucci (too late), and then when Hobbs came on board he of course thought he was politically savvy and didn't need it. Welp...here we are. They don't realize its not just about being smart, its that its very very difficult to get through these things, and often the first instinct is the absolutely incorrect one. It is human nature to defend yourself and react. In PR, its often the worst thing you can do, becasue you muff up the defense, and give them a whole new angle on which to attack you. It takes time to consider how a message will be digested by the public. Just because these are hack journalists doesn't mean they don't know what they are doing. They are trained to get people to say things they shouldn't or don't want to say.
The new rule of the Rutgers AD should be that everything gets slow played. Presidents cannot get away with that, but Universities can. The first response from the AD should always be, I am aware of the situation, but I am not prepared to comment on it at this time. Then prepare. Then release a statement to your preferred media outlet - preferably on Friday.
you're right.. Millennials think Gen Zs are soft.....
Not sure if partial scholarships are guaranteed. I know head count sports are.(football/basketball). But softball is an Equivalency sport.
So the fact that he was exonerated makes no difference? Now I know why you have the position you have. If you're accused, apparently in your world you're automatically guilty.
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Collins the main girl in this story transferred to Tennessee and quit there as well before playing a game. She is suing Rutgers for lost scholarship money.
Looks like one of the worst jobs one could have, even at $550,000/year. Dealing with nothing but supercharged narcissists and warring factions.
Go figure. Just a few seconds of research and the whole story becomes very clear.
Athletics should set up auto-reply to all press e-mail addresses:
"Thank you for your e-mail. The first and foremost concern at Rutgers is the well-being of our student athletes. If your inquiry involves allegations of abusive conduct towards our student athletics, please understand that Rutgers takes such allegations very seriously. We are not able to comment on such allegations due to several reasons including privacy laws and Rutgers policy on not commenting on potential and pending litigation."
I don't think parents in Florida are any different. The difference is, they just transfer, and when they do complain, there is a lot less of a story because the program, and athletic department as a whole, has been winning for a long time.
So much opportunity to improve things though.
The revocation of scholarships (in at least one case restored by RU) is an issue. It certainly seems 7 is a lot of players on a softball team to be so ticked off.
At the minimum Hobbs should have had his ducks in a row better than he did.
This is generally true, but Hobbs is part and parcel. Look at his tweet to CBS about Ash not going anywhere. He let Ash twist in the wind all of last year. Then gives a canned statement, keeps him, fires him 4 games in. He botched the firing of the swim coach. When approached with this story, he throws f bombs. The guy has a JD and LLM. He doesn't think to take time, look at documents, prepare a smart response?
Can't blame the donors, Julie, Pernetti or whoeever else. He's not helping matters. RU certainly has buckled under media pressure before that was unwarranted (firing Mulcahy) but the Rice situation was the first of many where the AD stepped in it and caused their own demise.
Stop. If we're going down for processing out weak players, then the entire conference should fold because they all do it more than us. Encouraging players to leave isn't revoking a schollie.
The mantra seems to be, "We are aware of the issue and taking steps to compound it".
Yes they are guaranteed too.
Therein lies the rub. Rather than make silly comments about the girls being pussies, etc I will give my take on what appears to have happened in this story. New coach comes in and eventually figures out many of the girls don't belong on a BIG roster in her estimation (nothing wrong at all so far). Knowing that those scholarships are guaranteed for 4 years, she starts to try and weed them out and treats them as such so they leave to free up scholarships for BIG level players. Some of the girls expressed they were being forced to transfer which was the end game of the coach. However, those scholarships are GUARANTEED and any attempt to force players to transfer or quit is a BIG no-no.
So the players leave, band together and get an attorney seeking damages for being forced to give up schollies. I sure hope the folks running the show here have all their ducks in a row.
From the article:
"Seven players said Butler attempted to run out players she didn’t think were good enough from the previous coaching regime. She also possibly violated an NCAA rule when she attempted to revoke the scholarship of sophomore infielder Myah Moy and another player who ended up transferring, the two players said."
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Isn't that against the conference rules? RU re-instated at least one of the schollies. Something was not right there.
Maybe he did and just had a bad reaction. Barchi's statement seems to indicate this was already addressed internally. I doubt he'd stick up for Hobbs if he didn't believe that was the case.
The statement Barchi released today was at least somewhat similar to what should have been released before letting this get blown out of proportion.
I just have a lot of trust issues with someone who can't restrain themselves on a work phone call like that.
We keep being told the next AD knows how to handle the media. As far as I'm concerned Hobbs nor his two predecessors do.
Yeah, two separate issues here. As for the media one, clearly a bad mistake. Nothing positive comes from a reaction like that no matter what the provocation was.
Your points, and those of others, are well taken. Certainly far from a perfect AD. With that said, he has also had a much more positive impact in certain ways than at least his two predecessors. I would hope that can be continued no matter who is hired next, whenever that is. I also don't like seeing yet another AD done in by scandal. If this was handled correctly by the department, and the initial Barchi statement makes it seem like it was, then I would not fire Hobbs now. Rather, let him continue for another year or two and then have an orderly transition to the next person.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say terminating a scholarship has a much more adverse effect than either of those two.
Look I'm not saying hang Hobbs but the guy's tenure is not the bed of roses a lot of his biggest supporters claim it is.
It would be pretty hard to outdo JH's botched call to EL or Pernetti not firing Rice.
There's a decent chance that the next President, especially if he or she is from a P5 school (and lord I hope they are) might want his or her own person in there. So Hobbs should tread pretty lightly. If he were to hire some MAC dud on top of situations like this, the swim coach, and Ash, he'd like be writing his own obituary here without a major save like basketball making a tourney run. Based on what I'm seeing from the NJ pol response he's not going to get a save there, either. Makes me think that the rumors about GS are likely because that would be the safest bet hire by far and would almost certainly buy him more time if he can't avoid scandal.
Just wanted to circle back to this thread as I heard Sargent address this story on the weekly podcast that they do. They addressed this story for a few minutes at the end. Sargent to me sounded quite defensive about it. Mostly, to me it confirmed that Sargent does not even understand that the story was one sided and did not seek to provide a balanced accounting of events. He claims at first he did not believe the allegations a big deal but he came to change his mind later -- in that case, why were no non-dissatisfied players talked to -- he hasn't directly alleged that he couldn't find any, which means he didn't look. Here is a summary of what he said:
- He received a letter on September 4 informing him of the allegations. It was from the same Wisconsin lawyer who represented the swimmers who complained. He thereafter investigated for more than six weeks.
- They spoke with all of the transferred players, and received Ohio public records.
- He stated that he stood behind the story and that he had no doubt the investigation by Rutgers would confirm the facts he presented.
- After the story was published, he says several other players came forward and confirmed the details of it.
- He believes that Rutgers did not investigate these allegations. He said the reason he felt the need to publish this story was because these players otherwise have no other voice. (No explanation as to why the lawsuit itself is not that "voice")
- I thought his line about the Rutgers investigation directly contradicted what Barchi said. Not sure if this was Sargent's opinion or whether he was trying to present it as fact.
- No word on whether and why players who did not transfer were contacted to get the other side of the story. In fact, no word as to whether a second side of the story even existed. It is clear to me that he believes it does not.
- No discussion about how the swimming story turned out -- essentially false (or, at a minimum, not worthy of punishing a coach) -- and why this one is different.
- He received a letter on September 4 informing him of the allegations. It was from the same Wisconsin lawyer who represented the swimmers who complained. He thereafter investigated for more than six weeks.
- They spoke with all of the transferred players, and received Ohio public records.
- He stated that he stood behind the story and that he had no doubt the investigation by Rutgers would confirm the facts he presented.
- After the story was published, he says several other players came forward and confirmed the details of it.
- He believes that Rutgers did not investigate these allegations. He said the reason he felt the need to publish this story was because these players otherwise have no other voice. (No explanation as to why the lawsuit itself is not that "voice")
- I thought his line about the Rutgers investigation directly contradicted what Barchi said. Not sure if this was Sargent's opinion or whether he was trying to present it as fact.
- No word on whether and why players who did not transfer were contacted to get the other side of the story. In fact, no word as to whether a second side of the story even existed. It is clear to me that he believes it does not.
- No discussion about how the swimming story turned out -- essentially false (or, at a minimum, not worthy of punishing a coach) -- and why this one is different.
What it shows is that the attorney that filed this thinks Rutgers is an easy legal target. And truthfully, they have been. If Rutgers believes it is correct and that the claim is truly baseless, Rutgers should litigate the case and, if appropriate, seek to recover its own attorney fees.
RU seems wildly adverse to litigation. They paid off Flood and Rice who could have easily been fired for cause.
The other side should have come from Hobbs when he was contacted. Had he not had the reaction he did, if RU did investigate, he could have shared the appropriate details and recommended a player to speak to who would have praised the coach.
I disagree with this in the sense that I would rather have had Hobbs say "no comment due to ongoing litigation" since it was an on the spot comment request. The statement by Barchi is all Hobbs would have later said anyway. Notice that Barchi's statement did not affect the tenor of the reporting on this issue at all.
It is clear to me (from the stories and now having heard Sargent's verbal explanation) that the writers have an agenda. That's fine and they're perfectly allowed to do that. Their goal is to sell papers / clicks, and a juicy story is what does that. Readers are also allowed to not assign them the credibility that would be given to a neutral arbiter.
So basically Sarge is once again full of :Poop
Rutgers has to now waste money on some lawyers to do their own interviews.
Rutgers has to now waste money on some lawyers to do their own interviews.
I don't believe it's in litigation. I think they got a Rule 408 or State tort type letter from counsel for the players. State law requires 90 day notice to any state-owned entity before litigation could be commenced in any case.
He could have said the issue is under review and nonetheless offered a different player to talk to.
I didn't search for the complaint, but according to news articles I saw, a lawsuit was initiated. Nevertheless a distinction without a difference -- just say "no comment" whatever the reason and later Barchi's substance would have sufficed.
According to a report by NJ Advance Media, former player Erin Collins filed a lawsuit against the university, alleging that she and seven other players were abused by Coach Kristen Butler and her husband while they were on the team.
http://newjersey.news12.com/story/41257034/rutgers-softball-coach-husband-accused-of-abusing-players
http://newjersey.news12.com/story/41257034/rutgers-softball-coach-husband-accused-of-abusing-players
THIS SHOULD BE READ BY ALL. Kudos to Richie!!
https://rutgers.rivals.com/news/rut...support-hc-kristen-butler-despite-allegations
https://rutgers.rivals.com/news/rut...support-hc-kristen-butler-despite-allegations
Here we go...let me guess...a lesbian claimed that the word “ball” is sexist and shouldn’t be used in any RU Athletics marketing, Hobbs laughed, and she’s suing. Am I close??
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