Rutgers’ missteps: A New Jersey joke?
University bungles again as AD’S hiring proves controversial
Perhaps Judith Viorst should have stayed in France.
Viorst, a best-selling author, was on Rutgers’ campus this month being inducted into the Hall of Distinguished Alumni. It was a wonderful evening, a black-tie gala with a red carpet.
The mood was light. Rutgers had seemingly turned the page on the scandal involving men’s basketball coach Mike Rice. There would be a fresh start, and a search for a new athletics director was underway.
“Everybody was breathing a sigh of
“It was a bad situation, and it just keeps getting worse. ... Rutgers, in only the way that Rutgers can, keeps this one going.” ESPN soccer analyst Alexi Lalas, who played at Rutgers from 1988 to 1991
relief it was behind them,” said Viorst, author of the classic children’s book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, which has sold 4 million copies. “And I think the school was feeling pretty good about itself.”
Then Viorst went to France. When she returned to her Washington, D.C., home, she had no idea who Julie Hermann was until a news reporter called Tuesday.
To fill Viorst in, as Alexander might, “Once everything came to light, Rutgers bumbled, stumbled and kicked its abusive men’s basketball coach out the door, and when the public outcry grew, RU pushed its athletics director out the door, too, and then hired a Rutgers graduate as basketball coach who turned out to be not really a graduate, and after they hired a new athletics director, the school learned that she allegedly verbally abused her players while coaching volleyball at Tennessee, calling them something that rhymes with doors.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Viorst, Class of 1952. Rutgers indeed is having much more than a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. It is having the worst two months imaginable. And embarrassed alums are wondering when, and if, it will end.
For Alexi Lalas, Tuesday was the first day of school … in 22 years. As summer session began, Lalas, a star on Rutgers soccer team from 1988 to 1991, was juggling several online classes and prep work for today’s exhibition soccer game between the USA and Belgium. The ESPN soccer analyst hopes to finish his degree and graduate before next summer’s World Cup.
“When I tell people where I went to school, the first thing they say is, ‘Boy, what a mess that is,’ ” Lalas said Tuesday. “That’s a horrible reflection on a place that means a tremendous amount to me. It was a bad situation, and it just keeps getting worse. We all know that stories eventually die out, but Rutgers, in only the way that Rutgers can, keeps this one going.”
Rutgers students and alums seem to have a bit of gallows humor when it comes to their alma mater. After all, this is the state university of perhaps the most maligned state in the union.
Grizzled Rutgers fans know that just when something good happens — the Big Ten, you’ve got to be kidding me! — disaster usually lurks around the corner. It is their fate. Their Charlie Brown destiny. Just when the school is about to kick a winning field goal, Lucy snatches the ball away.
This month, Rebecca Granet proudly held a diploma in her hand and looked to the future.
“I definitely thought that the bulk of the controversy was behind us at graduation considering the appointment of a new AD who was thought of so highly,” Granet said.
“On campus, the buzz regarding the issues seemed to calm slightly. I don’t think anyone thought a second wave of controversy would happen so soon. I would have thought that Rutgers would have taken extra care to find someone with an absolutely unquestionable, unblemished record so as to stay as far away from any questions of this sort and allow for the rebuilding of the program.”
One would think. Instead, the hits kept coming. Including Tuesday’s New York Times report, which linked Hermann, then an associate athletics director, to a 2008 lawsuit at Louisville, where an assistant track coach said she was fired for complaining about discriminatory treatment.
Hermann testified at a jury trial that found in favor of the coach’s claims, awarding her $300,000 for mental and emotional distress. The university appealed, however, and the Kentucky Court of Appeals overturned the verdict in February. The case is before the Kentucky Supreme Court.
Since the Rice practice tapes aired on ESPN on April 2, Rutgers has committed what Jeff Isaacs, Class of 1990, called a colossal series of management errors. Others who share his view have called for the dismissal of school President Robert Barchi.
But that might not happen. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Tuesday that he has absolute confidence in Barchi, calling him the right man for the job on a monthly radio show.
Isaacs said the school made former athletics director Tim Pernetti the fall guy, dodged responsibility instead of admitting mistakes, didn’t thoroughly vet Hermann and has done an especially poor job of public relations management throughout.
“Much like medicine, one of the first rules of public relations is to not make anything worse,” Isaacs said. “I haven’t seen a single decision to date which followed that dictum.”