Most college boards, especially at large universities, are businessmen or wealthy donors who meet once in a while to look at the financial picture or hire a new president. They have little idea of what is actually going happening on the campus, especially with relation to students. Many of them probably never attended the university.
Durkin fired
- Thread starter Purple Pile Driver
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Most college boards, especially at large universities, are businessmen or wealthy donors who meet once in a while to look at the financial picture or hire a new president. They have little idea of what is actually going happening on the campus, especially with relation to students. Many of them probably never attended the university.
At state flagships like Maryland, most of the board for the university system are appointed by the governor and you end up with the appointments treated as favors to big donors or strong election supporters.
Exhibit A: Maryland board chairman was the campaign chairman of the Governor's election campaign. No actual ties to the University.
As long as the board positions are treated as such, there won't be much change because you end up with a bunch of rich supporters of the governor running the universities.
Still waiting for Delaney and the conference to take action against Pen. St., MSU and Minny
Before I ask this question I am completely in the dark here as I have not read enough about this in detail:
Why was the supposed toxic climate at Maryland not known until this unfortunate tragedy. Because to me the two things are completely different from what the little I have followed.
The student athletes death seems to be a result of a strength coach going beyond the fine line of being tough and being flat out insane on a workout that should have never taken place in that kind of heat and the lack of medical staff and response. The buck does stop with the head coach as he is the CEO of the program but I just cannot grasp how he is taking so much back blame now when there was no line of complaints prior. Especially when coaches are coming into a program those recruited by the former staff are quick to spout off when a staff is trying to run them out.
In this day and age players will revolt and with social media nothing is off the record. The days of what goes on here stays here does not exist. Here is a young head coach who by all media accounts prior to this series of events was very transparent, enthusiastic, and highly thought of. The whole thing is a mess.
Why was the supposed toxic climate at Maryland not known until this unfortunate tragedy. Because to me the two things are completely different from what the little I have followed.
The student athletes death seems to be a result of a strength coach going beyond the fine line of being tough and being flat out insane on a workout that should have never taken place in that kind of heat and the lack of medical staff and response. The buck does stop with the head coach as he is the CEO of the program but I just cannot grasp how he is taking so much back blame now when there was no line of complaints prior. Especially when coaches are coming into a program those recruited by the former staff are quick to spout off when a staff is trying to run them out.
In this day and age players will revolt and with social media nothing is off the record. The days of what goes on here stays here does not exist. Here is a young head coach who by all media accounts prior to this series of events was very transparent, enthusiastic, and highly thought of. The whole thing is a mess.
Completely agree which is why this is so complicated to grasp. Why was the toxic environment never known or reported beforehand?
Coaches do exert considerable control over the lives of their student athletes; yes, there's significant differences in the modern day like smartphones/technology that captures everything and allows people to communicate to people outside easily.
But reality is there's still pressure to conform/peer pressure and the like that prevent the real story from getting out before a big incident like a student athlete's death. A lot of people looked the other way; the same way hazing gets out of control (as we've experienced at NU).
It is worth noting that there was one red flag raised in 2016, somebody on the team (or associated with a player) anonymously sent President Loh an email alleging that the football coaches were abusing the players psychologically and physically.
So Loh isn't necessarily blameless here if he just ignored that anonymous email. An anonymous email like that could just be a disgruntled player but it could also be something legitimate, he might've been able to do more then to solve this.
The allegations do sort of seem so bizarre that somebody should have spoken out sooner: From TheRinger: 'One member of the football team described being forced to overeat to the point of vomiting as a coach who had told him to gain weight sat with him; others spoke of being forced during team meetings to watch videos of “serial killers, drills entering eyeballs, and bloody scenes with animals eating animals.” One coach, Rick Court, was known to direct antigay slurs at athletes and throw weights, food, and, once, a trash can full of vomit at them.'
The fact that nobody was speaking out about these things, even anonymously, until the big ESPN "toxic football culture at Maryland" stories broke is a part of the problem. Just seems like there's so much pressure and control that people don't really think for themselves in situations like this. I can understand too because when you're in your late teens/early 20s, you view your coaches as father figures given it's the first time you're away from home. I get why there was hesitance to speak out earlier when you sort of treat coaches as your parent figures while at college.
Boards can only rule on what is brought to them. Hard for them to know details of what is really going on
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Oh I don’t know. Maybe Put people on the board who actually give a shit about the students?
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Taking the players tragedy away and this particular Maryland situation the problem that seems to happen at many programs from grade school through high school to college nowadays is that disgruntled players and their parents throw around words like humiliated, bullied, toxic like pennies. I know even Fitz has had players transfer / leave who have said they felt they weren't treated fairly. It is such a fine line between few disgruntled and a toxic culture.
Pretty disgusting. The offender should be expelled and arrested for assault (assuming he subjugated himself when he entered the country!
). This is one guy that should be deported.
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Agree this is disgusting. However is it a "whistle blower" or a disgruntled player. From what I have been reading now the majority of the team is upset with the firing and are blaming a few of the teammates for Durkin's undoing. They feel Durkin is getting blamed for the incompetency of the medical staff. What a mess
now when I re-read this the article is from earlier this year but still some comments about disgruntled players piling on. either way everyone has lost in this situation...sad
http://www.espn.com/college-footbal...-t-brady-chair-maryland-board-regents-resigns
Board chair resigns effective immediately.
This is a good second step after Durkin firing.
Board chair resigns effective immediately.
This is a good second step after Durkin firing.
Initially, the University made the mistake of locking the press out, saying no comment. With out a source, the press reached out to the grieving teammates and brothers of the deceased player who spoke in their compromised state of grief of the intense pressure that is exerted to a certain degree in all high level programs. (If you think Fitz never says, "s7it", I think you would be disappointed.) The team was not prepared how to deal with the press and in their anger and grief prompted them to vent all the frustrations of P5 level athletes.
These kids are going through pressure cooker, partly of their own making, partly of the making of a multi million dollar industry. Things were reported that would never been said except for the grief of the tragedy.
I also think there's an element of "nobody wants to be the wimp that couldn't handle it"; reality is football players have been told they need to be tough/warriors/etc. throughout their careers to this point.
It's identical to why hazing is rarely reported unless it leads to death or tragedy. No matter how horrible or weird the hazing is, most people just keep quiet about it because peers going through keep quiet about it.
Likewise, Court could've continued to abuse these Maryland players for years if ESPN hadn't gone asking around the program for details.
This Maryland situation most reminds me of Nassar and his abuse of young women up at Michigan State in USA Gymnastics. In that case the girls were younger and many didn't realize at the time they were being abused, and when the girls did report his actions, those were mostly dismissed by people in power.
Who's going to listen to unhappy players? Most would just be told to suck it up and listen to their coaches.
And I don't think any program is immune to this problem including ours. Football coaches and basketball coaches are the 2 most well-known employees of any university by far. Furthermore, given how much donations are driven by sports success for major division 1 universities; it's tough for any university to rein in or regulate its sports programs.
I'll be blunt, as an alum, most of my financial ties to the university are through following the football and basketball programs. That's really the main place where they keep the lifelong attention of alums... and major donors.
