… violent and prevaricating coach , direct your attention away from Rutgers for a moment and take a look at the University of Alaska.
The larger picture for Alaska involves spectacular statewide corruption. Our two far-flung states – Alaska and Hawaii – are among America’s most filthy, and their substandard universities, and corrupt university sports programs, reflect that. Of course one of the reasons these programs can be so corrupt is that no one outside Hawaii and Alaska pays any attention. We look at big urban states like New Jersey.
But UA has its own sports scandal going, and it precisely echoes the Rutgers story. College Hockey News reports:
Former Alaska-Anchorage forward Mickey Spencer alleges that former coach Dave Shyiak hit a player with his stick during a practice in 2011, then told players to keep quiet about it. Spencer made his allegations in a letter written to the school president and Board of Regents, it was reported in the Anchorage Daily News.
According to the letter, Shyiak violently struck forward Nick Haddad during a drill because the coach got angry that Haddad didn’t stop in front of the net as instructed.
The Daily News obtained the letter. In it, Spencer said, “He tomahawked, lumber-jacked — whatever you want to call it — him across the thigh on his (hockey) pants. We knew this wasn’t a small deal, it’s kind of a big deal. I’ve seen a coach break a stick over a goalpost or the glass because he’s pissed about something, but I’ve never seen one take out his anger on a player.”
You can understand why Shyiak was frustrated; he had eight losing seasons in a row at UAA. Anyone would have attacked a player.
As at Rutgers, after the violent coach went, the UAA athletic director who oversaw the coach was also forced out. There’s a suggestion that the university didn’t take the players’ report of the coach’s violence seriously; there’s also the fact that the university announced nothing of all of this to the media. And now, for unknown reasons, the search for a new hockey coach has been called off.
UAA athletics is also, by the way, under NCAA investigation for an undisclosed something or other.
The Sarah Palin appointees making up this university’s regents have called a special meeting to discuss all of this. That should help.