07-18-2017, 07:16 AM
Thanks Mick, I appreciate the summary. I'm a little bit unclear, though. The way you write it, you are making it sound like the law firm somehow engineered the finding of a violation, and that a truly independent law firm might have found nothing. But Rittman did violate NCAA rules by exceeding the NCAA hours, and, perhaps more crucially, falsified the data provided to monitor compliance. I am not aware that those facts are in dispute. And the NCAA produce a "show cause" clause against Rittman; these were not trivial or technical violations. You almost make it sound like the violations are Muir's and the law firm's fault, not Rittman's. For all the faults you may have found in the process, was the law firm's report flawed in some sense?
The other aspect of the "Muir botched the Rittman situation" through failure to supervise ignores that there was a layer of supervision between Rittman and Muir. That's not to say that the buck doesn't stop with Muir, and whatever else happens, Muir will always be saddled with the fact that he was overseeing the athletic department when the NCAA's first major violation was brought down. Ultimately, that's on him. But as, I think Bobk has mentioned, much of the complaining about direct supervision should be directed at the associate AD overseeing softball. For example, I would think it would be the responsibility of the associate AD to monitor compliance with practice hours, to deal with complaints about the coach before they bubble up to the next level and to work with the coach to resolve issues. Usually, if complaints are being escalated to the boss' boss, the problem has spiraled out of control and it is already too late to apply a corrective action.
Lastly, on the question of the mutiny, Muir's own role has been discussed at length, but all these discussions seem to ignore Rittman's own agency here. In the telling I see repeated here often, the mutiny happened to Rittman (and, perhaps it was all a grand plot by the Oregon coach to undermine Rittman). But Rittman recruited all the players, if there were bad apples in the bunch, then that's on him. Consider, for example, that much to the dismay of many people here, Shaw didn't recruit Josh Rosen despite his obvious talent, because he thought Rosen would be a good fit for the team. Secondly, every coach has to deal with players who are unhappy about playing time or expectations or practice drills or the coach's demeanor, and parents who are unhappy that their little Jill is not the star of the team. Although it is probably their least desirable thing to do, it is the coach's job to manage those grumblings so that they do not lead to infighting or mutiny. The last time that I know of that players publicly mutinied on a coach and went to the then athletic director to complain, it resulted in the firing of Walt Harris. Nobody seems to think that his firing was in any way "botched". Of course, it helps that Harris had just come off of a 1-11 season, so even the players who may have supported him (if there were any) understood why. Rittman, on the other hand, was very successful, which is all the more surprising. It is much easier for a successful coach to quiet disgruntled players since proof of the coach's methods is in the record and there is a natural tendency not to want to upset the apple cart in a winning team. The threshold for players going from unhappy at the coach to an all out mutiny is much lower in a bad team, so to me, the fact that there even was a mutiny is a bit of a red flag. As I said, by the time the players are requesting a meeting with Muir, a lot of things had to have gone wrong at lower levels. Disgruntlement and division can happen on any team, to any coach, but usually something is majorly wrong if the disgruntled faction arranges a meeting with the AD.
What I see as the real "botching" in the "Rittman situation" was not necessary everything that led up to his resignation, but the immediate aftermath. Once Muir fired Rittman, he was responsible for unifying the team, and instead the firing seemed to intensify the divisions between the pro- and anti-Rittman factions. This was a legacy left to the next coach, and although I don't see how Hansen would have been successful no matter how well she would have been set up, that many pro-Rittman players transferred and that the infighting continued points to a failure to heal the rift during the transition, and that suggests Muir could have handled it differently.
I'm only an observer here and don't have any insight beyond what has been presented publicly, and I am aware that in all these reports, the insiders providing the quotes (whether in support or in opposition to the former coach) have agendas. Perhaps a better AD could have detected that a coach was over-practicing his players and issued corrective action so that the coach wouldn't have been forced to falsify hours to be in compliance with the NCAA. And perhaps a better AD would have detected growing resentment of the coach and helped the coach navigate that tricky minefield to heal the divisions within the team before they resulted in a mutiny, thereby enabling us to keep our very successful softball coach and avoid NCAA sanctions. But honestly, I think the only realistic thing the AD could have done is minimize the fallout.
The other aspect of the "Muir botched the Rittman situation" through failure to supervise ignores that there was a layer of supervision between Rittman and Muir. That's not to say that the buck doesn't stop with Muir, and whatever else happens, Muir will always be saddled with the fact that he was overseeing the athletic department when the NCAA's first major violation was brought down. Ultimately, that's on him. But as, I think Bobk has mentioned, much of the complaining about direct supervision should be directed at the associate AD overseeing softball. For example, I would think it would be the responsibility of the associate AD to monitor compliance with practice hours, to deal with complaints about the coach before they bubble up to the next level and to work with the coach to resolve issues. Usually, if complaints are being escalated to the boss' boss, the problem has spiraled out of control and it is already too late to apply a corrective action.
Lastly, on the question of the mutiny, Muir's own role has been discussed at length, but all these discussions seem to ignore Rittman's own agency here. In the telling I see repeated here often, the mutiny happened to Rittman (and, perhaps it was all a grand plot by the Oregon coach to undermine Rittman). But Rittman recruited all the players, if there were bad apples in the bunch, then that's on him. Consider, for example, that much to the dismay of many people here, Shaw didn't recruit Josh Rosen despite his obvious talent, because he thought Rosen would be a good fit for the team. Secondly, every coach has to deal with players who are unhappy about playing time or expectations or practice drills or the coach's demeanor, and parents who are unhappy that their little Jill is not the star of the team. Although it is probably their least desirable thing to do, it is the coach's job to manage those grumblings so that they do not lead to infighting or mutiny. The last time that I know of that players publicly mutinied on a coach and went to the then athletic director to complain, it resulted in the firing of Walt Harris. Nobody seems to think that his firing was in any way "botched". Of course, it helps that Harris had just come off of a 1-11 season, so even the players who may have supported him (if there were any) understood why. Rittman, on the other hand, was very successful, which is all the more surprising. It is much easier for a successful coach to quiet disgruntled players since proof of the coach's methods is in the record and there is a natural tendency not to want to upset the apple cart in a winning team. The threshold for players going from unhappy at the coach to an all out mutiny is much lower in a bad team, so to me, the fact that there even was a mutiny is a bit of a red flag. As I said, by the time the players are requesting a meeting with Muir, a lot of things had to have gone wrong at lower levels. Disgruntlement and division can happen on any team, to any coach, but usually something is majorly wrong if the disgruntled faction arranges a meeting with the AD.
What I see as the real "botching" in the "Rittman situation" was not necessary everything that led up to his resignation, but the immediate aftermath. Once Muir fired Rittman, he was responsible for unifying the team, and instead the firing seemed to intensify the divisions between the pro- and anti-Rittman factions. This was a legacy left to the next coach, and although I don't see how Hansen would have been successful no matter how well she would have been set up, that many pro-Rittman players transferred and that the infighting continued points to a failure to heal the rift during the transition, and that suggests Muir could have handled it differently.
I'm only an observer here and don't have any insight beyond what has been presented publicly, and I am aware that in all these reports, the insiders providing the quotes (whether in support or in opposition to the former coach) have agendas. Perhaps a better AD could have detected that a coach was over-practicing his players and issued corrective action so that the coach wouldn't have been forced to falsify hours to be in compliance with the NCAA. And perhaps a better AD would have detected growing resentment of the coach and helped the coach navigate that tricky minefield to heal the divisions within the team before they resulted in a mutiny, thereby enabling us to keep our very successful softball coach and avoid NCAA sanctions. But honestly, I think the only realistic thing the AD could have done is minimize the fallout.