Oregon State Fires Chair-Throwing Coach, runs the headline at USA Today about LaVonda Wagner, the latest coach to cost a university millions of dollars in salary and then millions more in contract buy-out. Among the 129 comments in response to a local Oregon paper describing the scandal, the one that serves as the title for this post seems to me to express the situation best.
The coach’s abusive ways cost the team almost all of its players — they left in disgust — but OSU’s athletic director did nothing. Not even after players’ parents sent angry letters to him and OSU’s president. After all, good coaching sometimes involves roughing people up a bit. Look at Bobby Knight and Mark Mangino. Reasonable people can disagree about what a university is, but I think we can all agree it’s a place where students ought to be traumatized by multimillionaire coaches.
June 5th, 2010 at 9:34AM
Narcissistic abusive coaches aren’t confined to state universities, but I think that many private universities would react a bit more quickly to letters from parents and players leaving the team. I’m sure, however, that the athletic Odessa network will find another job for this coach within a short time.
June 5th, 2010 at 10:44AM
Maybe at least we’re on the way to gender parity in instances of abusive, overpaid coaches unfettered by institutional controls?
Progress of a sort.