flalax22 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 28, 2021 11:28 am
No question she was pushed. Some may say nudged it’s either way she didn’t come to this decision without the AD spelling it out for her.
Why is this necessarily the case? I have absolutely no idea what happened but why can't a coach that has been doing something for 29 years decide that it's time to do something else? I have met Janine several times - she's a better person than coach and she's a helluva coach. But if you accept the narrative that the admin from Daniels on down is lackadasical about lacrosse at best and secretly would like to see it diminished at worst - why do you push out Tucker? She's absolutely beloved by her players - by her peers etc. etc. and given the fact that Hopkins is in the same conference as Maryland and Northwestern she's under no pressure - except apparently from '06 - to win championships. So aside from the fact that as far as women lacrosse coaches go - Janine is probably on the higher end of the pay spectrum - why wouldn't you keep her around as long as she wanted to stay?
Again, I have no idea but maybe just maybe sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
So I've been saving a story about someone I ran across this summer but was waiting for the right moment to tell it. Don't know if he reads the boards and didn't want to expose him. But, my conversation with this guy aligns well with Tucker making her decision.
First, on Tucker, there is being "nudged" and then there is making it really difficult to do your job that you want to see what else is out there. Tucker might have gone to the AD to say she is thinking about evaluating her life taking into considerations that certain aspects are making the job less enjoyable. Some of those can be directly attributable to Hopkins - additional recruiting constraints, budget constraint, player academic requirements (all the stuff many of us have been talking about over the past 5+ years and see my story below). Some of these issues are not Hopkins related - COVID issues, taking care of her father, etc.
There is also the fact, she in her mid-50s. While I am sure she has been paid well, I doubt she is sitting on some DI football coach nut. I'm sure some of her books have done okay but enough to retire on? doubtful that is why she is likely to be coaching somewhere else...or, should I say doing something lax related in the near term. She probably had hoped to "retire" right now and was setting up Singleton to step in and that didn't happen doesn't sound great for Singleton filling the position.
Further, she has seen most of her colleagues that she's spent lots of time with either retire - Kennedy, Nelson, - fired Petro shuffled off for no real reason = Calder or sadly pass away - Margraff, Scott and Funk (though I think she passed away after she retired). Outside of Babb, there aren't many of those people left. That leads to some introspection. She also appears to have a lot of other lax related business out there. There is an argument she was looking for some validation from the AD i.e. "we want you to stay, what can we do so that you retire here in 15 years" or something like that." but, instead got "we support any decision you make." As always, it is what people don't say that is generally more important than what they say.
And now my story. I was taking my son to a lax camp and just sitting there minding my own business when an older gentleman came up to me and started talking to me. As we get talking, I tell him I went to Hopkins and the year I graduated. He then starts talking about one of his sons that played at Hopkins in the last 5 years or so. I figured out who is son was pretty quickly and we start talking about the program, Petro, Millman, etc. He said that it was time for Petro to leave but the way it was done was awful and it shouldn't have happened that way. He wouldn't get into more details on it but I got the sense there is a reason many former lax players were not happy last summer. It has quasi-been talked about on here.
But, what I thought was more interesting or disturbing was that he was told in several different conversations that Daniels not only would love to get the lax program to drop to D3 but when that happens it makes it that much easier to eliminate the entire athletic department. He said Daniels wanted to get rid of sports but with the NIL stuff, he really wants to get eliminate sports from Hopkins campus and more akin to a Swathmore or Chicago U (even though the both have sports programs). The belief put forth was that by limiting the support to the lax program, it would enable the argument to be made the Hopkins can't compete at the DI level and D3 is where is should be. He said there is still too much alumni pushback on that but a continual drop in success would likely allow his position to get stronger and the position against that move to wane.
It also would align with Hopkins "equity" push on new students and that many athletes are white.
And, yes, I get the H16 argument about new buildings, etc. but that's the view that was being presented to this gentleman and he conveyed to me.
