Dear President Shalala,
I write to you today to implore you to reconsider taking action in the matter of the football program, specifically with regards to the status of head coach Al Golden.
When Coach Golden was hired, we all had high hopes for him. He talked a good game, seemed to know what he was doing. We all trusted him. You were not alone there.
As time has gone on, we’ve discovered that this was merely a facade. That there was nothing behind the talking. The only refuge left for his support appears to be the Nevin Shapiro scandal. But to say he was punished by that is inaccurate. The only people punished have and continue to be the student-athletes in our program.
When that scandal hit, the immediate reaction was to throw as many players under the bus as possible to make Golden’s long-term job easier. We didn’t care if it was fair or right. In order to show contrition, the easy thing to do was to suspend players. Left and right. In both the football and basketball programs. Sometimes without explanation or reason. Simply to placate an institution you later called “unprofessional and unethical.”
As for the adults in charge of monitoring the program to ensure violations didn’t occur in the first place? They found cushy jobs at other institutions or remained in place at Miami, yourself included. Al Golden, the supposed aggrieved coach? Oh, he just received an obscene contract extension through 2020 for having one of the worst seasons the school has had in the last 30 years (which we thought was a low point until he just eclipsed it this year). Everyone made out: the legal team, the administrators, the coaches…everyone but the kids who received suspensions and bowl bans. They get to be called “thugs” while the adults in suits get to move on with their lives. They took the bullet for the entire program.
But there was a payoff to that approach. It did achieve the desired effect. The sanctions ended up being of the temporary variety, missing bowl games, and not long-term, mass scholarship losses. This is precisely why the current state of the program is so appalling. There are other programs dealing with much heavier scholarship restrictions performing much better. We’ve navigated the NCAA waters in such a way to limit impact. We cannot then claim victimization as causation of poor performance.
There are other layers here.
First is the contract itself. That contract extension was signed when the school flatly panicked at the height of the scandal. It was silly at the time, especially announcing it during a loss to a horrible Boston College team, but is now a catastrophic mistake. I understand that finances play a major role in any decision, and replacing Golden with someone else will be very costly short-term. From a finance only perspective it makes no sense.
Second is your impending retirement. There is definitely an urge to not make a major decision this late in your presidency. And that is not without merit. You would be making a major financial decision that the incoming president will have to deal with.
Those are complications, but shouldn’t cloud the real purpose of any university, which is to do right by the school’s students. Can anyone argue that it is actually in the student-athlete’s best interest to keep Al Golden for another year?
Yes, replacing Golden will be expensive. Whose fault is that? The student-athletes didn’t sign that contract, you did. Now you should pay to get out of it.
Yes, this is not the point in your tenure when you want to make a major decision. But we can’t choose when a crisis arrives. That’s why it is a crisis. The mark of true leadership is dealing with said crisis, even when it is poorly timed, especially when it is poorly timed.
Fans are certainly irrational. No good organization should ever just bend to their whim. But that’s not what’s happening here. Al Golden’s predecessor was dismissed for having the exact same job performance. All that is being asked is that you remain true to your own standard, that you remain consistent with what was done in the past, that you do not lower the standards of something that is so important to so many people on your way out the door. This is not irrational, it is enforcing the precedent that you set.
And it’s about avoiding what is likely to be an ugly scene next year. You’ll be long gone, with a new president in place when the 2015 season rolls around. But the players? They’ll receive continued poor instruction, they’ll have to operate in a hopeless, vitriolic environment. They’ve been through enough. Knowingly putting them through that is unconscionable.
When you gave an inspiring commencement speech at the American University of Beirut in 2012, you quoted President Harry Truman:
Individuals make history and not the other way around. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.
You are our leader. You have the opportunity to change things for the better. To salvage this situation. To salvage several student-athlete’s collegiate experience. To prevent what is likely to be a calamity next year. We only ask that you live up to the standard with which you’ve lead this school for 13 years, that you deliver on the promise to do right by students, and that you deliver on the same leadership axiom with which you charged those students in Beirut.
Replacing Al Golden will not be painless, but it will be in the student-athlete’s best interest. It’s about time someone else took a financial hit, took a reputation hit, was put in an uncomfortable situation so that the student-athlete’s are better off. They’ve taken enough punches for us. Let’s take one for them.
Time to eat all your words
Swallow your pride
Open your eyes
ALUMNUSVISHNU
