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Thursday, March 23, 2006

Baseball at
Washington State University:
Most Inspirational


From the Seattle Times:


Depending on where you look, Washington State University head baseball coach Donnie Marbut claims to have a master's degree, a teaching certificate or both.

In reality, he has neither.

He's lauded in official team biographies as a university baseball MVP, most inspirational player and all-conference infielder.

None of that is true either.

And there are other issues in Marbut's past that raise questions, a Seattle Times investigation has found.



[Before we get into the details: UD does wonder when the bullshit about university sports and character building is going to end. Many universities have given themselves over to liars, crooks, and conmen like Marbut. The only thing special about this case is that the university knows and acknowledges what he is but remains steadfast in its love for him.]


At Edmonds Community College, where Marbut coached until 2003, he used the school's facilities for his own gain, and witnesses say he took cash from groups that used the college fields. In another instance, he submitted a phony invoice to get Edmonds to pay for protein powder for players — a purchase the college had warned him was improper.

Marbut denied any financial improprieties. Of the false academic and athletic claims, he said some were errors by others, some he didn't notice and others were his own honest mistakes. [How were these “honest”? “mistakes”? This is how a seasoned petty crook talks.]

“I never was one to read a bio. ... I never thought I was important. Now any time anybody quotes me or says anything about me or writes anything about me, I'll do a better job of watching it," he said. [Huh?]

Marbut, who led Edmonds Community College to a league championship before joining the struggling Cougars as an assistant coach in 2003, has inflated his academic and athletic accomplishments for years.

The Times found he has listed the false academic claims on handwritten job applications and on typed résumés, and he's allowed the misleading athletic accomplishments to be repeated for years in team media guides and on the Cougar Web site.

Officials at Edmonds Community College said that, despite a recent state audit criticizing athletic-department finances under Marbut, they didn't know about the phony invoice, improper payments or false academic claims.

"During Donnie's tenure, none of this came up. If it had, we would have dealt with it harshly," said Edmonds Community College President Jack Oharah. [You didn’t notice a state audit?]

…Yet in Pullman, administrators say Marbut's $77,000-a-year job is safe.

"A couple of these things are errors in judgment by a person who has a lot of potential but who was young and ambitious and didn't really think things through," said Marcia Saneholtz, WSU's senior associate athletic director. "He will continue to be our baseball coach." [All WSU students can now expect the same understanding from the school when they lie and cheat.]


When Marbut became WSU's head baseball coach in May 2004, he was given a mandate to rebuild a baseball program that had dominated its division a decade earlier, but had finished last in the Pac-10 the previous five years.

Although the team finished last again in 2005 with a 21-37 record, Marbut managed to recruit a dozen top prospects for this year's team. [Wait for the inevitable article about how corruptly he managed this feat.] This year, the Cougars are off to their best start since 1994, with an 18-6 record and conference play starting Saturday.

Audit released

Last September, the state released its audit of the Edmonds Community College athletic program, covering the years Marbut was a coach and athletic director. The audit faulted the athletic department for poor recordkeeping and financial oversight. And it concluded that Marbut had profited by using college facilities to run a private baseball camp, a violation of state law.

The office forwarded Marbut's name to the State Executive Ethics Board for investigation in December. The board has not yet decided whether to review the case, said director Susan Harris.

After the audit, The Times obtained Marbut's personnel files from Edmonds and WSU. Those and other documents revealed the numerous false claims about his achievements.
Nine different records wrongly state that Marbut earned a teaching certificate, a master's degree or a graduate degree from St. Martin's College in Lacey, Thurston County.

In five of the records, the errors appear on forms or résumés that he himself filled out or created. Three are handwritten job applications he submitted at Edmonds Community College, in June and September 1999 and November 2001. One is a résumé he submitted to WSU in 2003. And one is a biographical data sheet he filled out for the university's Human Resources Department.

Marbut, 32, acknowledged that he never earned a teaching certificate or any other graduate degree. He points out that his coaching jobs have required only a bachelor's degree, which he does have.


…He said his WSU boss, assistant athletic director Saneholtz, told him it wasn't a problem.

Saneholtz said she did not recall that conversation. [Compassionate… and forgetful.]

At Edmonds, Marbut said, his supervisor, associate dean Nicola Smith, knew he didn't have the teaching certificate but told him to write it down anyway when he applied to be athletic director.

Smith responded: "I would not be in a position to tell someone to falsify a job application." [But it looks as though I did anyway.]

MVP claims

The misrepresentations don't end with Marbut's academic accomplishments.

WSU and Edmonds team biographies assert Marbut was chosen most valuable player on the Portland State baseball team in 1996 and most inspirational in 1997. Both bios also claim Marbut was named an all-Pac-10 North division infielder in 1996.

Two of those awards, the MVP and infielder honors, actually belong to a man Marbut hired last year to be his volunteer assistant coach: Matt Dorey, who played second base for PSU in 1996. The most inspirational player in '97 was third-baseman Darren Case, according to PSU records.

…Marbut blamed the WSU errors on the college Sports Information Office.

WSU Sports Information Director Rod Commons said mistakes in media guides do occur, but he couldn't explain how the Marbut errors happened or why they weren't fixed.

Ilsa Gramer, a former graduate student who was responsible for sports information for the WSU baseball program, said coaches must sign off on the media guide before it goes to the publisher. Marbut's biography appeared for two years without being corrected, Gramer said.

Marbut had no explanation for the Edmonds inaccuracies.


[It’s a long article. I’ll spare you the details on the protein supplements he tried to peddle and his off the books field rentals and other, er, personal enrichment activities.]


While WSU administrators stand by Marbut, they acknowledge the coach's past has followed him to Pullman.

As the state ethics board considers taking up Marbut's case, Saneholtz, the assistant athletic director, said the controversy may impact WSU's ability to recruit players.

"We are concerned about all the hearsay and innuendo that has been generated in the baseball community that could be unfairly damaging to our baseball program," she said.


[Boohoo.]