Strange news from my alma mater – the head football coach made some statements in an interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education that quickly brought down the president of the university:
Hatfield claims he was misquoted, but only insofar as he’d consider throwing gays off the football team.
I’m not sure what to think about this. Even though he’s said that he’ll follow university policy to the letter, I’m [sarcasm]sure[/sarcasm] that he’s providing a nice, secure place for a student to come out. In short, I think he’s a jerk and he should have known better than to make statements like that, considering that he does work for a private university that has a policy of nondiscrimination towards homosexuals, and that he should be sacked forthwith. But I’d like other opinions.
I dunno. He said something stupid, got called on the carpet and apologized. The fact that he’s a homophobic jerk hardly distinguishes him from most football coaches, so if you fire him and hire someone else it’s unlikely you’ll do any better.
Football coaches tend to be living caricatures of a B-grade Vince Lombardi TV special. Don’t expect a lot of depth to their thinking.
I notice that in his letter, he doesn’t deny having said it. He just says that of course he’s committed to upholding the non-discrimination policies of Rice.
which final sentence was…
Again, he doesn’t deny having said something like this, just that it wasn’t exactly what he said.
I believe that Jennifer probably wrote down exactly what he said. But–fire him? Well, does he win games? Isn’t that the important thing?
Sometimes when you see your idiotic words in print, it’s hard to believe you said something that dumb. So maybe the coach really thinks he was misquoted.
Rice is not exactly your big-time football school. So there’s probably more pressure to do all the other things right.
I doubt that he will be fired or that that has been considered. He made an ill thought out statement in an article in an academic periodical. I can’t find that copy in my collection…did it even make it to print?
Bottom line is business. Does he do his job well? Yeah, he does. Has he violated any rules? Not that I know of. Will it affect recruiting? Doubtful. Did he appolgize? Yep. Was ‘“providing a comfortable atmosphere for homosexual 'comming-out”’ I don’t see any reason that he should be punished for his narrow-mindedness.
[Paraphrasing]
“I’ll loathe them and hope they burn in Hellfire like the twisted freaks they are, but I won’t discriminate against them.”
[/Paraphrasing]
I couldn’t tell from the link given, how I would judge this – some redneck rant or another silly case of political correctness.
I did think it interesting that the president felt compelled to issue a response to the effect the football coach doesn’t make University policy, which would imply that’s the case some places.ROFL
