Knox suspended as Mac football coach
Remains under review after doing or saying something to an official at Sept. 22 game
Peterborough’s Greg Knox remains suspended from his job as head football coach at McMaster University in Hamilton following an incident with an official last month.
During a game against the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks on Sept. 22, Knox had some kind of verbal or physical incident with an official.
He wasn’t kicked out of the game.
The Ontario University Athletics had a hearing on the matter, heard Knox’s appeal of its initial decision and ultimately gave him a one-game suspension that he has served.
The university also put him on administrative leave pending an investigation.
A month later, he’s still not back at work.
The Marauders (4-3) are now preparing for their final regularseason game in Windsor on Saturday against the Lancers.
Nobody will say how far along the investigation is, what’s happening or offer any details about what he apparently did. Even the interim head coach doesn’t know what’s going on.
“I know nothing,” Tom Flaxman said this week. “I’ve been told nothing.”
Knox’s suspension by McMaster will reach three games this weekend with no end in sight.
It’s been a huge distraction for the other coaches and the dozens of student-athletes on the football team week after week with no end in sight.
“The OUA has issued the one game suspension for an alleged incident involving a game official,” the school’s director of communications Gord Arbeau said earlier this month.
“The university is reviewing the incident and has placed Coach Knox on leave pending the results of the review. I can’t provide a time frame as this is an ongoing review.”
The CEO of the OUA says Knox hasn’t been suspended by his organization.
A suspension would only be announced once all the steps in the hearing process have been done, Gord Grace explained earlier this month. That includes Knox’s appeal.
A suspension would be announced by OUA “only if the process is exhausted,” Grace said earlier this month. “But that hasn’t been finalized yet.”
During the warmup ahead of the university’s first-ever School Day Game in front of several thousand local students on Oct. 5, players wore T-shirts with #FREEGK — free Greg Knox — printed on the back. The front said McMaster Football vs. Everybody.
But, by the time the game had started, the shirts were gone. Numerous players say they’d been told to take them off.
The university’s new freedom of expression guidelines permit protests on clothing. “Protesting noiselessly, such as by displaying a sign, wearing clothing, gesturing, or standing, is acceptable so long as the protest does not interfere with the audience’s view, or prevent the audience from paying attention to and hearing the speaker,” the protocol states.