# Rutgers mess part 2 - Julie Hermann

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rutgers-mess-part-2-julie-hermann/659892>\
**Category:** The Game Room\
**Created:** [June 1, 2013, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rutgers-mess-part-2-julie-hermann/659892 "2013-06-01T22:08:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\
**Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rutgers-mess-part-2-julie-hermann/659892/1 "2013-06-01T22:08:29Z")

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A Hollywood writer couldn’t script this stuff. Rutgers fires an abusive coach and the AD that covered for him. Then they hire a new AD with a prior history of the same abusive allegations at Tenn.

Priceless. 😛 This can’t get much more absurd.

Except of course Rutgers is making it much worse by being indecisive. All they have to do is cancel the hiring. Any employment offer is contingent on the applicant being open and honest about prior employment history. It’s basically a get out of jail free card for Rutgers. She hasn’t even started work yet. This is so simple and they’re are screwing it up. Wish her well, send her back to Louisville, and hire someone else. Simple.

The other option is for Julie Hermann to acknowledge mistakes she made as a coach 16 years ago and pledge as AD to support the student athletes. Reports I’ve read indicates she has been supportive of the students at Louisville. But instead Hermann is claiming amnesia? :rolleyes: She doesn’t remember that her entire volleyball team filed a letter protesting her actions as coach? Nor does she seem to recall the lawsuit against her at Tenn for firing an assistant female coach that got married and had a child.

We need a box of popcorn and a soda while this comedy continues. This is the latest news. I hope Julie hasn’t signed a apartment lease in NJ. 😃 I think Rutgers will eventually find someone else for this job.

[http://collegebasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/06/01/report-rutgers-postpones-early-meetings-involving-julie-hermann/related/](http://collegebasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/06/01/report-rutgers-postpones-early-meetings-involving-julie-hermann/related/)

> [@](#):
>
> The Newark Star-Ledger reports late Friday that new Scarlet Knights’ athletic director Julie Hermann — embroiled in multiple controversies surrounding her past — has had a series of meetings postponed that were scheduled for next week.
> 
> Hermann was reportedly scheduled to participate in the meetings in the hopes of beginning her stint as the Rutgers athletic director a little earlier than her targeted June 17th start date, but those meetings have been postponed according to The Star-Ledger.

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**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\
**Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rutgers-mess-part-2-julie-hermann/659892/2 "2013-06-01T22:22:16Z")

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[The Volleyball Team that Hermann conveniently forgot.](http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2013/05/29/former-player-rutgers-ad-julie-hermann-erin-zammett-ruddy-abuse/2370459/)

[NY Times looking into a flawed hiring process.](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/sports/rutgers-committee-members-say-flawed-process-led-to-julie-hermanns-hiring.html?_r=0)

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**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\
**Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rutgers-mess-part-2-julie-hermann/659892/3 "2013-06-01T22:35:38Z")

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Here is the original Newark Star Ledger article. It’s a pretty definitive statement on Hermann as a coach.

Could she learn from this and be a great AD? Maybe. But hiding this from Rutgers is just inexcusable. Especially since Rutgers just fired a coach and AD for abuse.

[http://www.nj.com/sports/index.ssf/2013/05/rutgers\_new\_athletic\_director.html](http://www.nj.com/sports/index.ssf/2013/05/rutgers_new_athletic_director.html)

> [@](#):
>
> Sixteen years ago, members of the University of Tennessee women’s volleyball team gathered for a last meeting with their head coach, Julie Hermann. In gym shorts or jeans, some piled onto a black leather couch. Others sat on the floor, cross-legged, almost breathless.
> 
> Many of them remember Hermann standing over them, as she had at hundreds of practices and matches. For several minutes, as the players recall, she said nothing.
> 
> The players say everyone, including the athletic director, had been brought together by a letter all 15 players on the team had submitted. In it, the players said, their coach had ruled through humiliation, fear and emotional abuse.
> 
> “The mental cruelty that we as a team have suffered is unbearable,” the players wrote. Specifically, they said the coach had called them “whores, alcoholics and learning disabled.”
> 
> In blunt terms, the players wrote, “It has been unanimously decided that this is an irreconcilable issue.”
> 
> Hermann, the players say, absorbed the words, turned to her team, and said simply: “I choose not to coach you guys.”
> 
> At that, say the players, she turned and left the room. Her coaching days were over, and many players say they never saw her again, though she briefly moved into athletic administration on the Knoxville campus

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**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\
**Post date:** [June 2, 2013, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rutgers-mess-part-2-julie-hermann/659892/4 "2013-06-02T17:25:12Z")

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Scathing editorial. It’s not a good time for controversy at Rutgers. There credit rating just got downgraded.

> [@](#):
>
> this is what you are supposed to believe about the process that brought her and the school to this moment:
> 
> That out of all the other 60-plus candidates to replace Tim Pernetti as athletic director, out of all the men and women on their original list from schools all over the country, the one who became the only choice for Kate Sweeney, the co-chair of the search committee, the one who is supposed to have blown away the competition, is the one whose name appears in two lawsuits from her last two colleges, Tennessee and Louisville.
> 
> It has to be some kind of world record.

> **[Rutgers fails to ask tough questions in hiring of Julie Hermann as new AD](https://www.nydailynews.com/2013/06/02/rutgers-fails-to-ask-tough-questions-in-hiring-of-julie-hermann-as-new-ad/)**
>
> In the end, and two weeks before Julie Hermann officially assumes her position as the new athletic director at Rutgers unless somebody stops her, this is what you are supposed to believe about the …

> [@](#):
>
> TRENTON - In another setback for Rutgers University, rating agency Moody’s Investor Service has downgraded its credit rating, citing financial stress from its merger with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
> 
> Moody’s said the university’s tight finances and limited borrowing ability would be further strained by adding two medical schools, a dental school, and other parts of UMDNJ, along with 70 percent of its outstanding debt.

> **[Inquirer.com archives](https://www.inquirer.com/archives/)**

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**Author:** ![R.P.McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@R.P.McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R.P.McMurphy)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rutgers-mess-part-2-julie-hermann/659892/5 "2013-06-03T04:21:23Z")

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The B1G has to be thinking, “who the fuck thought it was a good idea to invite these guys in?”

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**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rutgers-mess-part-2-julie-hermann/659892/6 "2013-06-03T16:57:25Z")

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> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> Priceless. 😛 This can’t get much more absurd.

Hey, have a little faith in Rutgers. Based on how poorly they’ve handled everything so far I wouldn’t be surprised if they find a way to make this worse. [Here’s a story about how they rushed and screwed up the search that led to Hermann.](http://espn.go.com/new-york/college-sports/story/_/id/9323092/rutgers-emails-critical-julie-hermann-process) She’s a terrible hire and they should have already told her to take a hike. I wonder if they’ve decided they don’t want to buy her off and then pay a new AD while they still owe money to her and to Pernetti.
