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Post by bigchuck on May 16, 2021 12:38:35 GMT -5
UP There was no glee in the reporters mind when he got that quote. Satisfaction maybe, but no glee. This is a sad story. If anything, the Free Press has shown restraint with story. There is other stuff floating around out there that he either could not verify or was verified that he chose not to use.
He did not pressure me into the statement or misquote me in any way. The story was dead until that statement repudiating the players and parents came out. I was extremely disappointed until then. I was furious after that statement was released.
Each player on the team has had their life changed dramatically. Hopefully they will land on their feet and advance forward. It will not be because of anything the Athletic department has done for them.
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Post by Rogobob77 on May 16, 2021 12:38:45 GMT -5
Not the best PR approach with the media and alumni base IMO, from today’s article:
“Neither Vowels nor Gilbert have agreed to interviews despite multiple requests, with the athletic director only issuing statements through the school’s sports information office. Their silence and the festering situation — along with other issues the past few years, including Bacari Alexander's two-year tenure running the men's basketball team — continues to rankle longtime UDM donors who say they are frustrated by the problems.”
Trust me, Chuck’s disappointment with what’s going on is reflective of major concerns being expressed by a wide range of longtime program supporters.
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Post by ptctitan on May 16, 2021 13:36:27 GMT -5
The story was dead until that statement repudiating the players and parents came out. I was extremely disappointed until then. Not true. The story was dead until Jiera Shears published her video complaint on Twitter. That led to the first of 4 Free Press stories starting with the Shears story. The date of the Shears story was May 9th. The Vowels quote was included the first story about Moore that was published on May 14th. Until that time, posters, alumni and donors were critical of Vowels for not responding to the stories. So, then he responded and now some don't like his reply. The bottom line here is that the independent investigator hired by the university could not substantiate any of the players' claims.
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Post by bigchuck on May 16, 2021 14:17:43 GMT -5
The bottom line here is that the independent investigator hired by the university could not substantiate any of the players' claims. Somehow you missed this question: "We then conducted an internal fact-finding by an independent outside legal counsel and the allegations were not substantiated which led to us retaining the head coach." What does this mean? Depends on what their definition of substantiated is. There is a lot of wiggle room there. It infers that every player lied and was not backed up by the other players. I suspect that they want it to mean "even though some of the allegations were collaborated, they did not rise to a level that the University determined required the removal of the head coach. If that is so, why not be honest and say that? No reasonable person could believe that there was no collaboration of any of the allegations during interviews with every player.In addition, if the article is correct and Butzel Long did the investigation that it was an "outside" legal counsel, not "outside independent" legal counsel. That is if Butzel Long is our regular counsel on employment matters.
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Post by kirky313 on May 16, 2021 14:29:13 GMT -5
at the end of the day, It's kinda crazy that what all 14 said was not able to be verified. This screams to me "we are too cheep to fire her" Tom Stanton who was my professor and advisor and runs the Varsity News was quoted in the Free Press article. I have always had positive interactions with Robert. This plus how the BA situation and the women soccer situation were handled makes me wonder what's going on over there.
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Post by ptctitan on May 16, 2021 17:02:57 GMT -5
From the Oxford Languages dictionary:
I will restate with more precision.
The independent outside legal counsel conducting the internal university fact-finding did not discover evidence that supported or proved any of the players' allegations made via their parents' "NCAA complaint."
In the end, complaints like this one can only be decided on proof.
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Post by motorcitysam on May 16, 2021 17:15:31 GMT -5
at the end of the day, It's kinda crazy that what all 14 said was not able to be verified. This screams to me "we are too cheep to fire her" Tom Stanton who was my professor and advisor and runs the Varsity News was quoted in the Free Press article. I have always had positive interactions with Robert. This plus how the BA situation and the women soccer situation were handled makes me wonder what's going on over there. To take it even further, the position of the University seems to simply be "The organization we paid to investigate the matter says we aren't at fault". Not exactly ironclad proof. Even if you bring yourself to believe that all the players made up all the allegations (not likely) the fact remains that the continued response to this entire affair has been bungled by the University. Same as with the adulterous affair involving the former AD and the SMD Bacari incident, the position of those in power seems to be if we don't talk about it, it will go away. Should be obvious by now that that course of action doesn't work.
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Post by upbasketballfan on May 17, 2021 0:03:27 GMT -5
at the end of the day, It's kinda crazy that what all 14 said was not able to be verified. This screams to me "we are too cheep to fire her" Tom Stanton who was my professor and advisor and runs the Varsity News was quoted in the Free Press article. I have always had positive interactions with Robert. This plus how the BA situation and the women soccer situation were handled makes me wonder what's going on over there. When watching this team before all this went down I felt like the leaders were Moore and Webb. I went back and read the complaints and I am still stuck on a few. The coach sent the players conditioning requirements before the season started and from the sound of things some did not take the conditioning request serious. They get to practice and are not pleased that the coach expects them to be in condition. If you watched this team last year and this year you could not miss a few players who could not run the length of the floor and when the game did get quick this team was always playing like it was one man short. They are told they need to run a certain distance in a reasonable time or they do not get playing time. Playing time is not a right it should be earned. There was a problem with this. The coach carried some practices too long and on a road trip wanted to go over errors and mistakes while they were still fresh. Again this was a complaint. No mention ever of a practice being too short. Then the team decided that the coach was unorganized at practice. I guess my question here is who are they to judge whether she was organized or not. They entered the transfer portal and no effort was made to block them or hinder their transfers. Maxine Moore decided to stay and the University is letting her keep her athletic scholarship but the coach does not want her on her team. I think this is admirable. The coach does have the right to decide who is and who is not on her team and a fresh start for all concerned seems wise and reasonable.
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Post by ptctitan on May 17, 2021 6:23:51 GMT -5
Let me add to the known complaints here.
On page 2 of the January 17th NCAA complaint, the parents claimed:
One now ex-player stated in a Tweet that the following constituted belittling her about her grades.
This is abuse? Belittling? Not making a big deal about a benchwarmer's 4.0 is placing basketball over grades?
And the university is taking a big PR hit over this ridiculous claim? C'mon.
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Post by Commissioner on May 17, 2021 8:03:53 GMT -5
I'm sort of a contrarian. Whenever I see opinion hardening in one direction, I ask if there isn't a side to the story being overlooked. Re-reading the parents' letter this morning, I was singularly unimpressed by the charges. No doubt lots of the kids were unhappy, and no doubt Coach Gilbert and perhaps others were sometimes abrasive or insensitive, or simply had different priorities. Wrongdoing? Much tougher.
Relevant parts of the letter:
"Coach Gilbert came out of the gate with high expectations, challenging the girls to get in the best physical shape possible over the summer. However, upon arrival to campus the challenges quickly became mandates and prerequisites for playing time. Example: The following demands were made: 1 mile → 7 minutes, 1.5 miles → 11 minutes (posts), 10:30 minutes (guards), 2 miles → 16 minutes (posts), 15 minutes (guards). Coach Gilbert stated on several occasions that if those times were not made, players could not start and even went as far as to say that players would not play at all." (emphasis in original.
--Well whoop-te-do. It may not be the best coaching tactic to adopt such a hard and fast rule, but does anybody here really want to say that this is beyond the pale for a coach? And they lead with this?
Coach Gilbert has made it very clear that her priority is basketball over academics. For Example: She has been persistent with trying to get players to change their schedules and/or majors so that academic commitments do not interfere with practice. Several players have been asked to drop classes needed to graduate in order to comply with practice. For Example: Biology majors must take labs as a requirement to graduate; all UDM labs are from 2-5 PM one day a week and practice is scheduled from 12-3 PM. Coach Gilbert instills fear and guilt in players for wanting to take these classes and accuses them of “not being committed to the success of the program.” (emphasis in original).
--This is a tough issue and at the heart of college athletics. Does anyone here really think there are not literally hundreds of collegiate men's and women's coaches who discourage their players from taking classes that conflict with practices? Again, maybe this isn't what we want. But is this really inappropriate? It's interesting to me that they don't accuse her of "forbidding" players to take certain classes, or telling them that they "can't" take certain classes (language I could certainly hear a lot of coaches using). Also note the vague nature of this complaint (as with the prior one as well). The claim, "For Example" suggests they're being really specific, but "Coach Gilbert instills fear and guilt in players" leaves a lot of room for interpretation. I recall many years ago a student coming to my office and, literally in tears, asking "what do you want from me?" And I recall thinking to myself (not what I said to her), "Nothing. I don't even know your name." Both her question and my internal response may have reflected poor teaching on my part. But either way, she had a subjective reaction far out of proportion to anything I think I had actually said or done. And returning to the present, one can envision, in another situation, members of the team themselves questioning the commitment of their teammates who don't attend the practices and then expect to play, etc.
Besides, maybe this is what we want? And by "we," I mean we fans. How many coaches do you think place academics ahead of the sport? Really? Coach Scott may have been a nice guy, but he was a loser on the court--a big time loser. We complain when the teams lose. Do you mean to tell me you think many of our competitors, and the best teams, don't pressure the athletes to put academics after athletics? And when they do, how do we compete on the court if we do not? Which do you want, fickle fandom? The NCAA is everybody's favorite whipping boy, but when you really probe, a great many of their lengthy, often nit-picky regulations and rules came into existence precisely to protect the "student" side of "student-athlete" (including well-known ones such as the recently discarded 1-year transfer sit rule, which everyone seemed to agree horribly abused athletes). But the NCAA has very little ability to fight back if its big powers--the ones that generate the revenue--tell them to get lost. If they push the limits, anyone wanting to stay competitive will follow. Maybe one can strike a better balance than either Coach Scott or Coach Gilbert, and maybe the University shouldn't want Coach Gilbert. But is this a firing offense? Is that horrible for a kid to be told she lacks commitment? We live in an era when commitment *is*, I think, lacking, in all areas of life. Maybe this is something the kids need to hear. Meanwhile, coaches are under tremendous pressure to win, and that pressure comes from us, the fans.
She has also required, what we believe to be excessive participation in athletically related activities that diverts them from time that could and should be dedicated to their academic studies. For Example: Being directed to do extra workouts as a sign of commitment and when players try to decline the extra workouts with coaches/trainers due to schoolwork or even eating before and after practice, several remarks were made that insisted that basketball should come before education. Those players were also accused of “not being committed, not wanting to be good players, and not caring about the program.” (emphasis in original)
--Again, potentially troublesome, or potentially just players whining. Either way, see my comments above. I'm not blown away by this complaint.
Furthermore, as stated in NCAA policy, student-athletes are not to exceed 20 hours of countable athletically related activities. These hours are to be tracked and verified on the official CARA log forms that are authenticated with the signature of a student-athlete. There is evidence that these regulations are not being followed. For Example: There have been several instances where either practice begins anywhere from 15-20 minutes early and ends 10-15 minutes late. Start times are 11:40 AM and finish at 3:15 PM. Practice is scheduled from 12-3PM. Moreover, the coach will talk anywhere between 10-20 minutes after practice ends. NOTE: As recently as this week, the guards were instructed to be in the gym 45 minutes prior to the start of practice. Finally, no one knows who signs the CARA logs. Also, student-athletes who did not play substantial minutes in the games have been assigned to additional conditioning workouts that sometimes take place on off days or during the week after the 4-hour daily limit has been surpassed. If not attended, players were put down and humiliated in front of the entire team. In addition, Coach Gilbert held film sessions after away games at both the University of Illinois Chicago and University of Wisconsin- Green Bay; again another activity that grossly exceeds countable athletically related activities.
--Again, much of this is just recycling the first two complaints. But this is the first charge that suggests actual wrongdoing, as opposed to "we are unhappy with the Coach's style, demands, and habits." Again, the complaint isn't specific at all. It's possible some people here know more, but specific events and a lot of other detail are missing. And again, we see the difficult battle the NCAA faces, coaches face, athletes face--much of it brought on by we fans, who want to see our teams win. Is it wrong for the coach to suggest players do extra workouts, especially for conditioning, especially for players not getting game time? The letter says "assigned." What does that mean? If the coach says, "here are some added things you should do that will help you and might help you get more playing time: X, Y, and Z," is that a mandate or a suggestion? Is the athlete not going to do it? Ah, but that latter... we know the coercive effect of such a suggestion. So the NCAA puts in a rule about what a coach can say, and then we all bitch about how nit-picky it is and how it leads to selective enforcement, etc. In this case, was it an assignment? Well, no, apparently not--all that happened if you didn't do it is that you were "put down and humiliated in front of the entire team." That may not reflect well on the Coach, but most of us have seen worse during the middle of games on national TV.
Here is where I also would like to see the outside counsel's report. The Counsel's report found no wrongdoing, which would suggest no violation of NCAA rules, which would suggest that the players are wrong. And of course the players and parents can be wrong. They're not experts on NCAA rules. I'm surprised by the apparent willingness of everyone here save PTC to dismiss this report as somehow biased. I see no reason to presume the counsel is biased and unfair, but we should believe the disgruntled athletes who are mad because they have to run a mile in under 7 minutes. This is not like the consultant's report on branding. I've done both kinds of work in my career, and the approach one takes is very different. A lawyer's job it to tell his clients what they don't want to hear. Every lawyer who does compliance work knows you spend much of your time telling your clients that they are acting stupidly or illegally and need to stop. You spend far more time telling your clients what they don't want to hear than what they do want to hear. Law firms that are asked to undertake internal reviews like this have powerful incentives--including but hardly limited to malpractice suits--to get it right, and to provide the best legal advice, not just what the client might want to hear.
So sure, it's possible the outside review is wrong. But those rushing to dismiss it (typically on the grounds that they were hired by the University to do it, so we should presume it is wrong) don't understand the enterprise. Sure, maybe this firm isn't the best. Maybe they ignored their ethical obligations. But without more, there's no reason to presume that. On the fact of things, they are less biased, not more biased, than the players and their parents.
It has also been reported by the players that Coach Gilbert is not organized or efficient in conducting practice. She never has a practice plan and her assistant coaches regularly must give her time warnings that she often ignores. This is also true during shoot around and warmups before games.
--I'm pretty sure "being disorganized" is not an NCAA rules infraction. Gilbert has been a successful coach in the past. This is just whining.
Perhaps most disturbing of all, Coach Gilbert has created a toxic environment in which players are afraid to honestly communicate their injuries and illnesses to the athletic trainer. Consequently, the head athletic trainer (Mike Miller) himself seems to have the same angst about communicating injuries and illnesses to Coach Gilbert, thereby creating extremely stressful and negative interactions between Coach Gilbert, trainers and players.
For Example: Players Aly Reiff, Kaela Webb, Markyia McCormick, Sylare Starks, Maxine Moore, and Jiera Shears just to name a few, have all had significant concerns regarding injuries and ailments that include but are not limited to: concussions, plantar fasciitis, bone bruises, fractures, migraines and even COVID-19 symptoms. Not one of those athletes who reported these injuries and symptoms were handled with care or concern. In fact, they were coerced and guilted into competing. They were told that "If your bone isn't sticking out, you need to be giving something.” If the player persisted that she could not compete, Coach Gilbert bullied and persecuted that player for sitting out of practices and games. She has even instructed players to disregard or not to report COVID-19 symptoms in the middle of a pandemic, on game days. If the player did not comply, she told them she was “disappointed” in the student athlete for reporting the symptoms. Players have been shamed for acquiring injuries in practices and games by telling them to “Get up and get over it! It's a contact sport!” And “Stop limping! That’s a loser's mentality.” Players have also reported that the assistant coaches have also been humiliated and harassed in front of players and on the sidelines; most especially Coach Tim Webb, who is the only male on the staff. (emphasis in original).
--This certainly is the "most disturbing" accusation. It strikes me as rather remarkable that well over half the team had "significant concerns" about injuries and ailments (6 named, but they are "just a few," suggesting several others) in barely half a season. Look, I've had coaches, bosses, teachers, camp counselors and others say things similar to "if your bone isn't sticking out, you need to be giving something." That's a pretty basic, old school motivational talk. "Get up and get over it." Whoa! I didn't know I had a complaint everytime a coach said that or something similar like "walk it off." And to think I was abusing my daughter, a show jumper, when I told her to "get back on the horse."
There's a tough line to draw between urging players to continue through some pain and adversity (which may be a good thing), and ignoring serious issues. These claims, if true and falling into the latter category, would pose a serious liability to the school. I'll give the counsel's report the benefit of a doubt, in part because I know their incentives and job, and in part because I've been on many teams and in other group settings and I know how once a certain disenchantment sets in, everything behavior crosses the line and becomes a grievance.
In addition, Players have requested to see doctors and have been dissuaded by both Coach Gilbert and the Athletic Trainers asking, “why do you need to see a doctor?”.
--Can't get more unreasonable than asking if a player really needs to see a doctor, can you. The horrors of it all. What athletic trainer doesn't want their players to aggravate injuries so that they can't keep playing?
Players have been warned against going to administration for any matter. There was an incident involving a player simply having a conversation with the Athletic Director inadvertently sharing a concern about access to equipment, and she was relentlessly reprimanded in a 45 minute closed door session regarding “hierarchy" and how “leaders do not go above the heads of coaches to report anything to administration.” Later in the day, after a three hour practice, Coach Gilbert held a meeting for over an hour discussing the incident, and emphasized that she did not want them speaking to the athletic director for any reason, and that any and all issues are to be directed to her only.
-Most supervisors and coaches, of course, prefer their players to bring complaints directly to them first. This is no big deal. Assuming the truth of the letter (45 minutes of berating), Gilbert may have overreacted, but I'm not seeing some grand offense here.
... the players collectively feel anxiety when playing in practice or in games; so much so that they express that they do not even want to play for fear of making a mistake. It should be noted that players try to avoid directly interacting with Coach Gilbert for any reason out of genuine fear and anxiety.
--Once again, vague complaints that indicate that Coach Gilbert had certainly lost control of and the respect of this team, but not improper behavior. This is basically saying, "we don't like playing for this coach. This may be one reason we are losing. You should fire her." That's actually not a bad argument for an AD to consider--AD's exist, at least in part, to fire coaches. But it's not a rules infraction, a breach of contract, or in and of itself a per se firing offense. And the problem, when you write a letter like this, and make it public, you put the AD in a very difficult position, because for the long-term good of the school's overall athletic program, the AD really can't be seen as not backing up his coaches every time players are unhappy and go to the press about it.
Coach Gilbert has made several comments in practices and in the heat of close games that the players are replaceable, and that they can and will be replaced. ● Several players have witnessed Coach Gilbert interact unprofessionally with assistant coaches; insulting them and threatening to fire them. ● Coach Gilbert gossips and makes unkind comments about players during practice while on the sidelines (sometimes with her daughter who is a high school senior and not a member of the team), as well as in one-on-one meetings with different players. ● Coach Gilbert has made distasteful comments to the team such as: "I'm disgusted with ya'll", "Ya'll don't deserve to win", "You're cowards!", "Coward's limp, losers limp" (to injured players). ● The players have heard Coach Gilbert give up on them in the middle of games. Example: During the second quarter of a game, she made a disheartening comment about how she was “done” and that she should just keep her mask on and stay seated for the remainder of the game. ● Assistant Coach Tim Webb and Graduate Assistant Coach Tori Moreland have been the only people in which the players feel they can confide . (emphasis in original)
--This is just more of the same.
So I read this long letter, and see a lot of the typical gripes about coaches which sometimes become toxic. They may hinder the team's success, and may be a reason one should fire a coach. But I think only two--violating NCAA rules on practice time, and ignoring serious injuries--would rise to the level of "misconduct." And here--at least for now--I'll give the Counsel's report the benefit of a doubt. Why? I haven't seen the report. But the complaints are vague, without context, and seem overblown. Knowing the incentives and responsibilities of each, I'll go with the Counsel.
It's been argued that if all the players are saying this, it must be true. But I don't think that's right. Most of the complaints are vague, and given without context. Read that complaint closely. One can believe everything in the letter--or at least believe that the players believe everything in the letter--and conclude that there may be some smoke, but there is certainly no fire. Or maybe there is fire, but all the smoke is obscuring it. The point is, one doesn't have to conclude that the players are lying to conclude that their complaints are not so serious as they seem to think.
Bottom Line: There are obviously problems in the women's program, and they do not reflect well on Coach Gilbert and her ability to be effective at Detroit Mercy going forward. That's a decision for the AD.(And, btw, I'm not a big fan of Vowels and his decision making over the better part of a decade--but we do know that he will fire coaches, including his own hires, if he thinks it is in the best interest of the program). But we've seen this before (think Coach Harding), as has most every college or university at one time or another. Maybe Gilbert should be fired as a result, but publicizing this letter made that a difficult option for the AD. I'll take the Counsel's report that nothing here is a per se firing offense or NCAA infraction.
We'll see. I could be wrong in giving credence to the Outside Counsel. It's a sad situation, and while I'll give the benefit of a doubt to the Counsel's report, the truth is I have no strong sense of whether Gilbert should be fired, whether the athletes have truly serious complaints or are just blowing a list of small grievances out of proportion, or much else. Maybe it's just that I have a strong predisposition to side with the accused in almost any situation. I tell my students that--I am unabashedly pro-defense, whether it's criminal law or civil law or something less formal. I think one of the worst things in life is being accused--and then punished--for things one didn't do. Others have different pre-dispositions.
I write this long post just because, well, as I began, I'm a bit of a contrarian. It seems to me that most of our posters, and certainly the Detroit press, is coming down hard on the side of the players and parents, and at this point I don't think there's much evidence to support that position. Today's Freep article adds nothing--it just recycles the same complaints.
Time may tell.
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Post by motorcitysam on May 17, 2021 8:18:21 GMT -5
The hits just keep on coming. Although, the list of charges being made don't seem to warrant the team wide mutiny that took place. Granted, I wasn't there and I am only going by what I'm reading about this, but I'm not seeing cause for a "we won't play if this person is still the coach" stance, especially in the middle of a season. The price that U-D (maybe I should start using the M word for negative situations like this) pays for their "no comment" approach to controversy is that others get to set the narrative with no resistance. In the absence of more information, most observers will just run with the headlines.
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Post by nctitan on May 17, 2021 9:52:43 GMT -5
I am a proud Detroit Mercy alum, a proud supporter of the school and its athletic programs. When it comes to athletics I am proudest of our academic accomplishments: many, many students on honor rolls, great team performances – every program over 3.0 GPA last year, soccer in the top five nationally – and I am proud to say that Detroit Mercy has student-athletes, not athlete-students. Today the top article on the Athletics Department website is a graduated soccer player earning a Horizon League scholarship for his post-grad education. And we have had many successful athletes who have also had stellar academic careers where the school has accommodated rigorous programs (engineering, five-year MBA, pre-med).
So it has pained me to see the women’s program ripped apart because a coach discounts academics and academic achievement. I realize that Coach Gilbert is paid to win, but at Detroit Mercy that means winning in the framework of achievement in the classroom. And I realize that Coach Gilbert wants a successful coaching career, but the success of the students is more important. If these athletes’ claims are true, Coach Gilbert is not who our school should be putting at the head of a program. Disregard for health and academics is anathema to the mission of Detroit Mercy Athletics – “to create the best opportunity for the success of every student-athlete” – as well as morally wrong for a Jesuit college.
When I met Jiera Shears’ father I asked how a young lady from Charlotte ended up in Detroit, expecting to hear of a family connection. His response was that Detroit Mercy is one of the few Division I women’s basketball programs that gives a scholarship to an athlete enrolling in an engineering program. I was very proud of that. But the school seems to have reneged on that promise when the new coach discounted her ambitious academic pursuits as incompatible with playing basketball.
The Athletics Department has a pretty bad record of hiring women’s coaches. Bernard Scott was apparently a nice guy, but if you look at the rosters of his final few years most of his freshmen transferred out each year. (I don’t know why.) And there were issues with the previous women’s basketball coach and a former women’s lacrosse coach. The department seems to have a blindness when it comes to hiring coaches for women’s teams.
I expect that the law firm investigating the program was looking for evidence of wrongdoing and to see if there were grounds for firing Coach Gilbert, that she violated either rules or her contract. Apparently nothing provable surfaced, so she’s still there. But that doesn’t mean she’s blameless and that the women on the team were all wrong. It’s a lot of smoke for there to be no fire. Like Jim Harding, as mentioned by Commish, I expect that when Gilbert’s contract is up so is she. Wrong person for the job. I just hope the Athletics Department figures out how to hire a coach for a women’s program by then.
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Post by titantarheel on May 17, 2021 10:19:13 GMT -5
Our 2nd most prominent sports program has ZERO players officially enrolled on its roster, although maybe 2 if the latest signees/transfers occur, as the academic year comes to a close. I don't know another time this has happened at UDM or another state of Michigan school for really any sport in recent memory. I'll defer to someone else to tell me how regular this is.
We have players, parents, connected alumni all on record noting things weren't right with the program. That things were quite wrong with the program. The AD himself notes that new measures have been put into place as a result! If things were rock solid, why the need to change anything?
BUT...instead we are now doing some combination of one or more of: victim shaming, splicing reports that we don't have full insight and information on, ostrich head-in-sanding on the severity of the situation (especially from a PR perspective), and noting how its only a situation because its been reported by a newspaper that we think has had an ax to grind against us for 40+ years.
Player A: "Coach didn't believe that I had concussion symptoms" UDM Coach: "That's not accurate" Legal Team: "Well well, looks like another item NOT substantiated, call in the next player for the Coaches to decline they did anything wrong, we'll have this report done by lunch! Maybe we should pitch to them another brand review!" (as they fan themselves with dollar bills)
Oh, and we are actively trying to take the side AGAINST a bunch of 18-22 young women who trusted their college experience in UD to be Titans and now are gone with an absolute bitter taste in their mouths about life at 6/Livernois. The letter from the team starts “After having daily, detailed conversations with our daughters over the last several months; many of which were passionate and tearful cries for help...". TEARFUL CRIES FOR HELP. Alas, go on and whistle on by the graveyard while holding up some report that says 'unsubstantiated'. *Cue high horse* My Jesuit values definitely taught me about taking the side of the powerful and such.
It's true to date it seems there isn't an absolute smoking gun to hold up (I don't know, video tape of Coaches mocking concussed players), but there sure is enough doubt to believe that "all claims are unsubstantiated" and thus nothing to see here. ALL players are gone. Not even 1 stood up and is saying 'You know, this has gotten a bit much, I think Gilbert and Co were fine'. TEARFUL CRIES FOR HELP. (I feel like Mitch Album by repeating a random phrase)
I don't know, I appreciate our shared love of the Titans and all but I am a little surprised/perplexed/saddened by the wise voices here doing the above. I'm caught in the emotion of it perhaps, but to just completely disregard the young ladies...why would anyone want to come be in this environment as a Lady Titan in the future?
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Post by bigchuck on May 17, 2021 10:26:29 GMT -5
Our 2nd most prominent sports program has ZERO players officially enrolled on its roster, although maybe 2 if the latest signees/transfers occur, as the academic year comes to a close. I don't know another time this has happened at UDM or another state of Michigan school for really any sport in recent memory. I'll defer to someone else to tell me how regular this is. We have players, parents, connected alumni all on record noting things weren't right with the program. That things were quite wrong with the program. The AD himself notes that new measures have been put into place as a result! If things were rock solid, why the need to change anything? BUT...instead we are now doing some combination of one or more of: victim shaming, splicing reports that we don't have full insight and information on, ostrich head-in-sanding on the severity of the situation (especially from a PR perspective), and noting how its only a situation because its been reported by a newspaper that we think has had an ax to grind against us for 40+ years. Player A: "Coach didn't believe that I had concussion symptoms" UDM Coach: "That's not accurate" Legal Team: "Well well, looks like another item NOT substantiated, call in the next player for the Coaches to decline they did anything wrong, we'll have this report done by lunch! Maybe we should pitch to them another brand review!" (as they fan themselves with dollar bills) Oh, and we are actively trying to take the side AGAINST a bunch of 18-22 young women who trusted their college experience in UD to be Titans and now are gone with an absolute bitter taste in their mouths about life at 6/Livernois. The letter from the team starts “After having daily, detailed conversations with our daughters over the last several months; many of which were passionate and tearful cries for help...". TEARFUL CRIES FOR HELP. Alas, go on and whistle on by the graveyard while holding up some report that says 'unsubstantiated'. *Cue high horse* My Jesuit values definitely taught me about taking the side of the powerful and such. It's true to date it seems there isn't an absolute smoking gun to hold up (I don't know, video tape of Coaches mocking concussed players), but there sure is enough doubt to believe that "all claims are unsubstantiated" and thus nothing to see here. ALL players are gone. Not even 1 stood up and is saying 'You know, this has gotten a bit much, I think Gilbert and Co were fine'. TEARFUL CRIES FOR HELP. (I feel like Mitch Album by repeating a random phrase) I don't know, I appreciate our shared love of the Titans and all but I am a little surprised/perplexed/saddened by the wise voices here doing the above. I'm caught in the emotion of it perhaps, but to just completely disregard the young ladies...why would anyone want to come be in this environment as a Lady Titan in the future? AMEN!
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