The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
This chapter of the HuskiesVols rivalry needs Westbrook’s story
STORRS — Geno Auriemma said if we knew what it had been like for Evina Westbrook at Tennessee — which he can’t tell us — we wouldn’t want our kids in that environment.
Auriemma said that in making the original decision to deny Westbrook the waiver that would have allowed her to play immediately at UConn, the NCAA wrote what she went through at Tennessee was a normal situation. Said Auriemma, “A lot of campuses should shut down their programs if that’s normal.”
UConn’s Hall of Fame women’s basketball coach said if one of his players went through what Westbrook did there would be an investigation in Storrs.
These were all strong words, spoken on more than one occasion. Powerful words. Public accusations without specifics. All along, Auriemma has said he couldn’t say what Westbrook endured.
And now it’s done. Or at least Westbrook’s chances of playing this season are done. On Wednesday, the NCAA Committee for Legislative Relief ruled against her appeal. We will not see Westbrook in a UConn uniform until next season and it will significantly impact the Huskies’ chase of a 13th successive Final Four. In a release, athletic director David Benedict
wrote that knowing the facts of the case he was at a loss at how Westbrook lost the appeal and the system in place had failed. Benedict, like Auriemma said, did not reveal the facts of the case.
“I don’t feel like it’s my place to do that,” Auriemma said Friday. “It’s somebody else’s. If Evina wants to, if anybody in her camp wants to, that’s different. I’m not going to get into any of that.”
UConn has not made Westbrook available since the NCAA’s initial waiver ruling. And when the school does, I would argue Evina and her family should make public the substance of what happened to her at Tennessee.
Maybe it involved the breakdown of team discipline under former coach Holly Warlick and maybe it didn’t.
Maybe it involved the way Westbrook’s left knee was treated — the one that needed surgery upon her arrival at UConn — and maybe it didn’t.
Maybe it involved something else.
Maybe it would be painful to discuss. Maybe it wouldn’t.
Yet we are so deep in this story, with speculation so wide, with Auriemma and Benedict speaking, Tennessee AD Phil Fulmer and new coach Kellie Harper speaking, even a former Tennessee football star tweeting … I would argue Westbrook and her family would do college sports a significant service by explaining what happened.
Expose the NCAA for so badly whiffing on its decision.
Expose Tennessee for not supporting her decision to transfer.
Help fellow athletes down the line in a transfer case in the pursuit of just decisions.
From 30,000 feet above, it’s easy to see the fuller picture. The NCAA poohbahs have pieced together a waiver process that is individually selective, secretly examined and determined and capable of little more than willynilly decisions that leave schools, athletes and the general public totally perplexed.
Some call for all transfers to be immediately eligible, ignoring the annual free agency that would directly affect competitive balance of major college basketball.
Others believe all transfers should all sit out a year — no waivers for special cases — doubling down on the archaic and draconian practices the NCAA has used in football, basketball and baseball.
The gray area that the NCAA currently operates in between couldn’t be any murkier, any more difficult to discern, any grayer.
Yet piling the blame on the NCAA here does not change the specifics of Westbrook’s waiver request and appeal. And it does not change the fact that we still don’t know the facts. And without the facts at some point UConn simply comes off as proclaiming guilt without substantiation. Reread the first three paragraphs if you think some of those accusations weren’t heavy.
“We did everything we needed to do,” Auriemma said. “We feel like it was an unusual circumstance. We’ve had kids transfer in here lots of times and we never applied for a waiver. We knew, hey, the kid left for reasons that have nothing to do with the environment. This one was different. This one was a hundred and ten thousand times different. For the NCAA to not see that was very disappointing. Very disappointing.”
I have no reason to disbelieve Auriemma.
Years ago, he was unfairly subjected to accusations of a slew of tickytacky violations by Tennessee and the late Pat Summitt. All along, he said they were nothing. He was right. In the end, there was nothing but hard feelings. And, oh yeah, 11 UConn national championships. The only reason Auriemma agreed to resume playing Tennessee after all these years is because it’s for charity and the Hall of Fame’s involved. You get the feeling he’d rather not see orange anymore. Yet here orange is. And now he sees red and off we go.
UConn fans are going to believe the worst. Tennessee fans are going to believe the opposite.
“The next time Geno says something about our Lady Vols program and my coach and our current AD I may go personally slap the taste out of his mouth,” former Tennessee and NFL wide receiver Peerless Price tweeted Friday. “Boy stop as many players you’ve had transfer and they didn’t get immediate clearance to play. The nerve of this guy.”
While Harper’s comments were innocuous, Fulmer has gotten caught
up in complaining about Tennessee losing a waiver request men’s basketball player Uros Plavsic. It made him look hypocritical. No, Tennessee did not object to Westbrook’s waiver request, but it didn’t support it either. In advance of the appeal, Auriemma and Benedict asked Fulmer again to do so. He yawned.
“Just say we support Evina’s move, we think it would be best for her if she was at another place, which we do with every kid that transfers,” Auriemms aid. “I wasn’t asking to do something that no one does. But then don’t bitch and moan when one of your kids gets denied who’s trying to come into your school.”
After the appeal was rejected, Fulmer told Zack Rickens of WVLT in Knoxville that Auriemma doesn’t know him, he doesn’t know Auriemma, it’s water under the bridge and Tennessee is moving forward.
“He doesn’t know me, and I don’t know him,” Auriemma said Friday. “I do know Evina met with him on a number of occasions and then he said the first time he heard of it was when he read about it. Somebody’s not telling the truth.”
Another blow to the gut of Rocky Top.
Auriemma said he did not discuss with Westbrook about her and her family publicly disclosing what she went through at Tennessee.
“It’s not my place whether they should or should not,” Auriemma said. “I don’t think that would change anything, the fact they would say anything publicly. If I were them, I would do the same thing. I would just say it’s over and done with. We presented out case and we lost. So we move on. That’s all.”
It’s Westbrook’s and her family’s call.
If they say nothing, here’s one guarantee. The speculation will continue until the day she leaves UConn and it will grow loudest when the schools meet this season and next. When no one talks publicly, sources inevitably do and who knows what version of the truth will surface? At that point, Westbrook will have added to the rivalry yet not to the pursuit of what it right and truthful for her and every studentathlete.