UConn more disgraceful than 2 losing seasons

“Sentence first, verdict afterward,” Wonderland’s Queen told Alice. The queen of the University of Connecticut, President Susan Herbst, has just made a similar pronouncement on men’s basketball coach Kevin Ollie.

The university says it is firing Ollie for “just cause,” which would nullify his entitlement to his $3 million annual salary for the three years remaining on his contract. But the university won’t say what the “just cause” is.

While the national collegiate sports organization is investigating the UConn men’s basketball team for possible rules violations and the university is conducting its own review, no charges have been brought. A UConn spokesman says that as far as he knows, neither the national investigation nor the university’s own review has produced any findings.

So what is the “just cause”? Apparently only that Ollie’s team has endured two straight losing seasons, that the university just spent $5 million buying out the contracts of its second straight failed football coach and his staff, and that paying $9 million or more to repurchase Ollie’s contract might call more attention to the university administration’s incompetence and venality.

Two losing seasons are annoying but hardly constitute misconduct, and they are mitigated by Ollie’s having won a national championship four years ago in his second year as coach.

Even if some rules violation is found, would it necessarily be a firing offense outside the context of two straight losing seasons? Ollie’s predecessor, the great Jim Calhoun, who created the UConn men’s basketball program from almost nothing, won three national championships, and thereby did more than anyone to build the whole university, got caught in some rules violations and the university gladly overlooked them.

If UConn cared about due process, in getting rid of Ollie it would have said nothing about “just cause” until it was ready to disclose its charges. The university will have to give the coach a hearing soon and presumably disclose them then, at least to him. But if UConn already possesses documentation of what it considers Ollie’s misconduct, it is improperly withholding public record.

Of course the university administration is just trying disgracefully to intimidate Ollie into negotiating his severance way down to spare UConn more embarrassment over its extravagance amid state government’s insolvency. But this attempt at intimidation is an embarrassment in itself and another reason why the new state administration that will be elected in November should arrange new leadership for UConn, too.

Chris Powell is the former managing editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester, Conn.