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Articles
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Left twisting in the wind Meeting notes, lies, taking the hit for the memo By: Richard Linde, 1 August 2003
In a sane environment, during the meeting with NCAA officials on June 4, Dana Richardson would have admitted her culpability by discussing her memo and explaining why she misinterpreted 10.3; the NCAA officials would have said, "it is no wonder you misinterpreted it.." If the world were fair, the media would have no highly paid coach to savage in their crusade to tarnish big-time college football. Many of them feel big-time college football is corrupt. So how do the media deal with the alleged corruption inherent in college football? They create unrealistic standards for those teams and people that participate in the sport, standards of perfection impossible to meet, unless they are aware of the rules of the game. NCAA officials are as cowardly as anyone else in the media's crusade, and will snap to attention at the sight of a television camera. It is easier for NCAA biggies to go along with the media’s party line than it is to admit they blew the rule. It is easier for UW officials to admit they blew the blown rule, misinterpreting it vis-à-vis the Dana Richardson memo, rather than fight the NCAA. In the news yesterday, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published an article relating to notes taken by several of the participants who attended the June 4 meeting with the NCAA that led to Neuheisel’s termination. The notes were included in a stack of documents requested by the Post-Intelligencer under public disclosure laws. There is really no new news here concerning Neuheisel’s imbroglio, other then mention of what we’ve been told before - that Neuheisel lied in the morning and told the truth in the afternoon. No coach has ever been fired for telling the truth on the same day he fibbed. We now know the specifics of the foot-in-the-door questions about possible illegal recruiting tactics, these with respect to a potential recruit and Neuheisel, phone calls made to the recruit and the alleged entertainment of prospects in Neuheisel’s boat. [Bruscas]. What’s interesting about the article in the P-I is the disclosure of a memo written by a UW official advising recipients of his e-mail to delete it because “we may at some time get a Freedom of Information Act request for all e-mails in your possession." [Bruscas]. Apparently the e-mail retracted the memo sent by Dana Richardson to athletic department personnel, the controversial e-mail that permitted participation in the March Madness basketball pool as long as it was done with friends outside of the athletic department. Evidently, Dana Richardson, who was present at the meeting, failed to acknowledge the memo she’d written, and no one else did, including AD Barbara Hedges who was at the meeting. If they had, I assume that the P-I would have disclosed that in its article. If my inference is true, then both Hedges and Richardson were less than forthcoming at the meeting, letting Rick twist in the wind as he was grilled by the NCAA officials. Apparently, Neuheisel took the hit for them, not wanting to damage the university by disclosing the content of Richardson’s memo. No mention is made in the P-I story of the faulty tape recording of the two meetings held on June 4 with the NCAA officials. The tape could have confirmed what was written on the notes that were obtained by the P-I. Reference: [Bruscas]. Bruscas, Angelo, “Notes show Neuheisel lied,” The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 31 July 2003. |
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In a reasonable society, the NCAA officials would have told
Rick Neuheisel that neighborhood sports pools are against its rules, and then
would have promised to rewrite Bylaw 10.3 for clarity so that sports pools
are disallowed without ambiguity to interpretation. The NCAA would have
apologized to Neuheisel, because a misinterpretation of the NCAA’s ambiguously
written rule could have jeopardized his job in an unreasonable work place.