[Mick]

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?

I'll try to be a little more clear.

I don't believe I implied that the law firm was engineering the finding of a violation.  I don't think a truly independent law firm would have found nothing.  I think Rittman would probably have ended up with a "show cause" finding and a Level II violation.  But the purpose of an investigation is holistic.  In this case, my sense is that it was treated with a single target (Rittman) and limited scope (how bad was Rittman?), rather than a process-based investigation; e.g., what rules and oversight were either not in place or not followed?  And perhaps the investigation included that part.

I spent 19 years at Arthur Andersen and PricewaterhouseCoopers.  In the accounting profession, if your client owes you a great deal of money, you can't issue an audit opinion, because you're not truly independent.  And in a situation in which a law firm is not truly independent of a client vis-à-vis an internal investigation -- which is my take on (a) a law firm that had a Stanford board member and (b) a law firm that is one of the two largest law firms as measured by fees paid by Stanford and © Stanford uses other law firms in very small ways for employment purposes and (d) there are at least a dozen firms based in California with exceptional internal investigations practices, well...it is not a good look.

So let's say we put all that aside.  Rittman's guilty, he falsified records to make 21 hours look like 20.  Still...player supporters of Rittman stated that they were not contacted by investigators.  Huh?  Does that sound like a complete investigation to you?  Or does it sounds like one that is incomplete?

We have a minor, but important disagreement here.  For small violations, the middle layer of management should have picked it up, and it would have flown beneath Muir's radar.  However, this is no small violation.  For anything that leads to a Level II violation, senior management had better be on top of it.  I've been a CXO or equivalent  for twenty years, and based on internal evaluations from both the lawyers and accountants I've worked for, a big part of that responsibility has been ensuring that there were no brewing catastrophes based on structural rules.  And at every staff meeting, I ask about adherence to rules.  You have to be able to sniff out BS, it's part of your job, particularly if brand strength is mission-critical, as it is at Stanford.  And this entire debacle ruined a portion of Stanford's brand to the point that they couldn't attract a great coach.

As for the second level of management, how does the AAD assigned to oversee the program still have a job?  My assumption is that the independent investigation found the AAD essentially blameless.  How can that possibly be?

Early on, I addressed this specific situation.  I don't think it was surprising at all.  Rittman was, in all likelihood, an ego-fueled successful coach who stretched boundaries when and where he could, and he likely shut off incoming opinions.  Unlike many of the successful coaches, he had the daughters of two men who were very prominent in the high-amateur softball community.  White's daughter retired for medical reasons, but did not get to retain her scholarship.  The other had very little playing time.  Do I think Rittman got arrogant and careless?  You bet.  I think he also got unapproachable as well. Having had two sons in D1 Sears Cup sports, I've seen the phenomenon.  One of my son's teammates was the son of a very highly placed USA Volleyball official.  You think his coach didn't realize that and pay way more attention both to the parent and the player?  Of course he did.  And that coach encouraged all of us to call him at any time.  We had his office and mobile phones.  Did he make mistakes?  Absolutely.  Did any of us ever once call the AD?  Ah, no.

Rittman thought his record made him bulletproof.  I imagine some of the players tried to talk to him about it.  I'm sure Rittman didn't listen.  But part of your job as AD and AAD is to get your coach to recognize problem scenarios when they develop.

The immediate aftermath was 100% predictable.  It happened because Muir and the AAD botched both management of their employee, communications with players and parents, communications with the coach when the xst hit the fan, the clear preference to deliver a lopsided result in favor of one faction, and the complete lack of respect of the faction that supported Rittman, said faction of which were the best players on the team.  And yes, Muir left Hanson an undoable task -- because he botched the prelims, not the aftermath.  The aftermath was predictable because he botched the early part.

I love that line, BTW "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."  How, BC?  How was he going to unify the team when he would only listen to one part of it and specifically catered to the demands of that part?  "Seemed to intensify the divisions between..."  Ya think?  What other outcome could there possibly have been?  It was simple to project a horrible three years based on a weak incoming coach because of Muir's very public shortcomings surrounding the mutiny.  That is why players transferred, why players quit early and why prospects decommitted and went elsewhere.

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.

I agree with you, with respect to average ADs with limited resources.  But this is Stanford, and Stanford has immense resources, and wins the Director/Sears Cup every year.  Stanford has resources substantially beyond those  of other schools, and as I noted before, it is very easy to attract top athletes to Stanford.

Shouldn't our AD and AADs be at least above average?

[Mick]

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?

I'll try to be a little more clear.

I don't believe I implied that the law firm was engineering the finding of a violation.  I don't think a truly independent law firm would have found nothing.  I think Rittman would probably have ended up with a "show cause" finding and a Level II violation.  But the purpose of an investigation is holistic.  In this case, my sense is that it was treated with a single target (Rittman) and limited scope (how bad was Rittman?), rather than a process-based investigation; e.g., what rules and oversight were either not in place or not followed?  And perhaps the investigation included that part.

I spent 19 years at Arthur Andersen and PricewaterhouseCoopers.  In the accounting profession, if your client owes you a great deal of money, you can't issue an audit opinion, because you're not truly independent.  And in a situation in which a law firm is not truly independent of a client vis-à-vis an internal investigation -- which is my take on (a) a law firm that had a Stanford board member and (b) a law firm that is one of the two largest law firms as measured by fees paid by Stanford and © Stanford uses other law firms in very small ways for employment purposes and (d) there are at least a dozen firms based in California with exceptional internal investigations practices, well...it is not a good look.

So let's say we put all that aside.  Rittman's guilty, he falsified records to make 21 hours look like 20.  Still...player supporters of Rittman stated that they were not contacted by investigators.  Huh?  Does that sound like a complete investigation to you?  Or does it sounds like one that is incomplete?

We have a minor, but important disagreement here.  For small violations, the middle layer of management should have picked it up, and it would have flown beneath Muir's radar.  However, this is no small violation.  For anything that leads to a Level II violation, senior management had better be on top of it.  I've been a CXO or equivalent  for twenty years, and based on internal evaluations from both the lawyers and accountants I've worked for, a big part of that responsibility has been ensuring that there were no brewing catastrophes based on structural rules.  And at every staff meeting, I ask about adherence to rules.  You have to be able to sniff out BS, it's part of your job, particularly if brand strength is mission-critical, as it is at Stanford.  And this entire debacle ruined a portion of Stanford's brand to the point that they couldn't attract a great coach.

As for the second level of management, how does the AAD assigned to oversee the program still have a job?  My assumption is that the independent investigation found the AAD essentially blameless.  How can that possibly be?

Early on, I addressed this specific situation.  I don't think it was surprising at all.  Rittman was, in all likelihood, an ego-fueled successful coach who stretched boundaries when and where he could, and he likely shut off incoming opinions.  Unlike many of the successful coaches, he had the daughters of two men who were very prominent in the high-amateur softball community.  White's daughter retired for medical reasons, but did not get to retain her scholarship.  The other had very little playing time.  Do I think Rittman got arrogant and careless?  You bet.  I think he also got unapproachable as well. Having had two sons in D1 Sears Cup sports, I've seen the phenomenon.  One of my son's teammates was the son of a very highly placed USA Volleyball official.  You think his coach didn't realize that and pay way more attention both to the parent and the player?  Of course he did.  And that coach encouraged all of us to call him at any time.  We had his office and mobile phones.  Did he make mistakes?  Absolutely.  Did any of us ever once call the AD?  Ah, no.

Rittman thought his record made him bulletproof.  I imagine some of the players tried to talk to him about it.  I'm sure Rittman didn't listen.  But part of your job as AD and AAD is to get your coach to recognize problem scenarios when they develop.

The immediate aftermath was 100% predictable.  It happened because Muir and the AAD botched both management of their employee, communications with players and parents, communications with the coach when the xst hit the fan, the clear preference to deliver a lopsided result in favor of one faction, and the complete lack of respect of the faction that supported Rittman, said faction of which were the best players on the team.  And yes, Muir left Hanson an undoable task -- because he botched the prelims, not the aftermath.  The aftermath was predictable because he botched the early part.

I love that line, BTW "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."  How, BC?  How was he going to unify the team when he would only listen to one part of it and specifically catered to the demands of that part?  "Seemed to intensify the divisions between..."  Ya think?  What other outcome could there possibly have been?  It was simple to project a horrible three years based on a weak incoming coach because of Muir's very public shortcomings surrounding the mutiny.  That is why players transferred, why players quit early and why prospects decommitted and went elsewhere.

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.

I agree with you, with respect to average ADs with limited resources.  But this is Stanford, and Stanford has immense resources, and wins the Director/Sears Cup every year.  Stanford has resources substantially beyond those  of other schools, and as I noted before, it is very easy to attract top athletes to Stanford.

Shouldn't our AD and AADs be at least above average?