Mental Health, Abuse and reporting in Women's Lacrosse

[Downhill Dodger]

In this day and age of litigation, outrage, Twitter, everyone has a voice (regardless of IQ)......something is REALLY missing from this story.

Let me be clear: Colgate has ZERO reason to keep Coach Taylor if even 10% of the story is true. Why on earth would they keep her on if all these things were true? Why on earth would they keep her on if 10% of this story was true? The program makes no money for the school. They haven't won anything of note, ever. They are not a national brand. Taylor has no significant history at this level (they aren't standing by Nick Saban or Geno Auriemma). So, what the hell are they doing?

That leads us to only two plausible explanations for how we got here:

1. The vast majority of the player's narrative is down right false. Not out of context. FALSE. And the university investigated and found nothing of note worthy of firing Coach Taylor

OR

2. The athletic department and University Human Resources were born yesterday, can't add 1+1, and are about to take a multi million dollar lawsuit to the chin.

Seriously though, what else could this be? How can we reasonably assume these accusations are true AND that Colgate decided "Nah, they don't warrant a firing." We are missing some key elements on this story.

Never underestimate an AD wanting to not have this land on their record, so they can move on to another position. Job preservation is key, they don't want to be derailed by a scandal in women lacrosse

[LaxPundit07]

One could argue that NOT firing the coach given the apparent allegations would be the scandal. And that is my larger point. They would NOT roll that dice. There is so much more to this story. And I would really suggest not passing judgment on the coach here without full direct knowledge of the story.

[Downhill Dodger]

One could argue that NOT firing the coach given the apparent allegations would be the scandal. And that is my larger point. They would NOT roll that dice. There is so much more to this story. And I would really suggest not passing judgment on the coach here without full direct knowledge of the story.

I think the movie producer, Robert Evans put it best when he said,

"There are three sides to every story: my side, your side, and the truth. And no one is lying. Memories shared serve each one differently."

The problem here is a large number of women have left this program, the school has done an investigation and imposed new standards and oversight for the coach's behavior, a number of players have been quite vocal about their treatment and how miserable it is to play for the coach from their perspective, the school has gone to extraordinary lengths to accommodate the players who left the program, so one can surmise that not everything is Kosher in Hamilton, otherwise they would have just fully dismissed the player's concerns. That is one side

The coach has a lot of friends in the coaching ranks, as evidenced by her Presidency of the coaches org, who will likely back her up, as they have their own bias' as to the entitlement of the modern-day student-athlete and how if they had a clear field they would run the "ideal" program, which is very subjective. They probably have known her as a coach from a coach's perspective for a number of years and have an entirely different relationship with this coach than the players do. That is the other side

At the end of the day as a coach, you are what your record says you are, and this coach has a 39% D1 winning percentage, a lot of bad press, and documented unhappy players and high attrition, not exactly a recipe for success, my bet is that she is gone within 24 months as the new AD says "I don't need this headache and let's move on

[DMac]

Very well said, DD, I agree.

[njbill]

I had hoped Nigel would weigh in on this discussion since his experience is much, much closer to Colgate wlax than any other posters’, as far as I can gauge. Certainly including mine.

Taylor was hired in June 2019 according to the website. Presumably, her first recruiting class was the 2021s (high school). That means that when the proverbial sh*t hit the fan, three or four years (including fifth years) of players were on the team whom she had not recruited.

As I previously stated, I have no direct knowledge of the situation, but just from general experience, I have to think the fact that she had not recruited the large majority of the team when the brouhaha started is a factor, maybe a major factor, here.

All of us have heard of stories about how kids recruited by prior coaches don’t do well under new coaches. It is an unfortunate reality of college sports.

[Seacoaster(1)]

One could argue that NOT firing the coach given the apparent allegations would be the scandal. And that is my larger point. They would NOT roll that dice. There is so much more to this story. And I would really suggest not passing judgment on the coach here without full direct knowledge of the story.

I think the movie producer, Robert Evans put it best when he said,

"There are three sides to every story: my side, your side, and the truth. And no one is lying. Memories shared serve each one differently."

The problem here is a large number of women have left this program, the school has done an investigation and imposed new standards and oversight for the coach's behavior, a number of players have been quite vocal about their treatment and how miserable it is to play for the coach from their perspective, the school has gone to extraordinary lengths to accommodate the players who left the program, so one can surmise that not everything is Kosher in Hamilton, otherwise they would have just fully dismissed the player's concerns. That is one side

The coach has a lot of friends in the coaching ranks, as evidenced by her Presidency of the coaches org, who will likely back her up, as they have their own bias' as to the entitlement of the modern-day student-athlete and how if they had a clear field they would run the "ideal" program, which is very subjective. They probably have known her as a coach from a coach's perspective for a number of years and have an entirely different relationship with this coach than the players do. That is the other side

At the end of the day as a coach, you are what your record says you are, and this coach has a 39% D1 winning percentage, a lot of bad press, and documented unhappy players and high attrition, not exactly a recipe for success, my bet is that she is gone within 24 months as the new AD says "I don't need this headache and let's move on

Yes, great post Dodger.

[Downhill Dodger]

I had hoped Nigel would weigh in on this discussion since his experience is much, much closer to Colgate wlax than any other posters’, as far as I can gauge. Certainly including mine.

Taylor was hired in June 2019 according to the website. Presumably, her first recruiting class was the 2021s (high school). That means that when the proverbial sh*t hit the fan, three or four years (including fifth years) of players were on the team whom she had not recruited.

As I previously stated, I have no direct knowledge of the situation, but just from general experience, I have to think the fact that she had not recruited the large majority of the team when the brouhaha started is a factor, maybe a major factor, here.

All of us have heard of stories about how kids recruited by prior coaches don’t do well under new coaches. It is an unfortunate reality of college sports.

I have never understood, the "my player" vs. the" previous coach's players" argument or mindset that college coaches bring to the table. The minute you took the job, they are all your players, and it is your job to get the best out of them and develop them to the best of your ability regardless of who recruited them. You might recruit better players who beat out the existing players, but let that happen on the field of play and on the basis of ability

I know of a situation where over two classes 13 of the 20 kids who signed NLI's left the program prior to the end of their sophomore year, with most leaving sometime during their freshman year. If the out of pocket tuition and r & b costs not covered by the partial scholly is around $40 grand per year per player, that coach just ran off and lost the university $520,000 in annual revenue by creating an adversarial environment.

[njbill]

I agree that a new coach should try to work with the existing players. Obviously, that’s something that needs to happen in every single situation unless the coach is starting a new program. In the old days, unless you weren’t going to honor commitments, a coach might go as long as four years before kids she/he recruited arrived on campus.

Same goes for the players. They need to learn to adjust to the new coach.

But it’s not unusual that the existing players don’t mesh as well with the new coach as they did with the coach who recruited them. In many cases, the new coach values different qualities in players than what the prior coach did.

It’s not just limited to sports. If a new boss comes to a company, he or she may not work well with some of the existing employees. Some of the employees may not like the new boss.

Just human nature.

Again, we are all familiar with stories of existing players who don’t like the new coach who replaced the coach who recruited them.

[Dasher]

Let’s not be dismissive of the awful situation that occurred here and pass this off as problems with “disgruntled employees”. Players in the complaint had key roles and /or won postseason awards. The spotlight always needs to shine on those who abuse power. Don’t be apologists for their alleged actions, actions that the College deemed relevant enough to to make significant personal and policy changes and guarantee scholarships.

[njbill]

Dasher, I don’t see it quite your way. You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but upthread you were willing to concede we don't know all the info. Now you have concluded it's an "awful situation." Ready, fire, aim.

But let’s peel back the varnish here. Somebody (pretty obvious who) hired a fancy pants New York City law firm to conduct an “investigation” of sorts and to present a complaint to the university.

The obvious purpose was to get the coach fired. They failed.

After the university conducted an investigation, they implemented changes, including giving some of the players soft landings. All of that is to Colgate’s credit.

If the lawyer’s report told the full story, you would expect the coach to be fired. But that didn’t happen. Colgate did not terminate Coach Taylor. That to me has significance.

One side of the story has been told. How many of the complainants were Taylor’s recruits? Any? How many were recruited by prior coaches? I know this will never happen, but it would be in the interest of full disclosure for all of the information generated by both the law firm and the university to be released: all of the interviews, all of the names, all of the findings, all of the conclusions.

For me, I’m not drawing any firm conclusions until I see all of the evidence (which I understand won’t happen).

Edit to add: Colgate's 2023 roster has 3 seniors, 8 juniors, 10 sophs, and 10 frosh. Also they have 8 HS 2023 commits and 8 HS 2024s. Taylor recruited the sophs, frosh, and the two HS recruiting classes. A prior coach (I suspect Heather Young) recruited the current seniors and juniors. The senior class (2023) started out with 8 frosh. The junior class (2024) started with 10 frosh. So 5 of 8 seniors and 2 of 10 juniors have dropped lax along the way. I also looked at the class of 2022 (also recruited by the prior coach), which started with 7 girls as frosh, 3 of which were still on the team as seniors. Natural attrition? Issues with Taylor? Some combination?

[Dasher]

Fair reply. I respect your opinion. But I would argue that it’s hard to describe this situation, the lawsuit, press, and multiple players quitting as anything other than awful.

[lax410]

It’s doesn’t bear on the complaints of current players but I have not heard good things about her recruiting practices. Rescinding offers late in the game. Can’t help her with future prospects.

[njbill]

I know nothing about Taylor’s recruiting, but unfortunately rough recruiting practices are all too common in women’s lacrosse. Pulling offers and poaching happen. I certainly don’t condone either.

One of my all-time favorite players was offered a spot at a Patriot League school by a coach with an illustrious name. This was back in the old days, and the offer was made during her freshman year. Coach gave the kid a very short time frame (days) to accept. Kid said she needed more time. Coach pulled the offer. Surely left a bad taste in my mouth. Unfortunately stories like that are not too uncommon. Recruiting ain’t bean bag.

Not that long ago, coaches didn’t make offers until the summer after junior year. Then things got earlier and earlier, almost to the point that coaches were hanging out in the maternity wards. The change that was made a few years ago is a step in the right direction, but not enough in my view. There’s no reason offers can’t wait until the summer after junior year. Non-athletes have until May 1 of their senior year in many cases to decide where they are going to school. The later the decision is made, the better it will be for the athlete and the school. And, I think, the fewer stories we will hear about recruiting problems.

[Downhill Dodger]

Dasher, I don’t see it quite your way. You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but upthread you were willing to concede we don't know all the info. Now you have concluded it's an "awful situation." Ready, fire, aim.

But let’s peel back the varnish here. Somebody (pretty obvious who) hired a fancy pants New York City law firm to conduct an “investigation” of sorts and to present a complaint to the university.

The obvious purpose was to get the coach fired. They failed.

After the university conducted an investigation, they implemented changes, including giving some of the players soft landings. All of that is to Colgate’s credit.

If the lawyer’s report told the full story, you would expect the coach to be fired. But that didn’t happen. Colgate did not terminate Coach Taylor. That to me has significance.

One side of the story has been told. How many of the complainants were Taylor’s recruits? Any? How many were recruited by prior coaches? I know this will never happen, but it would be in the interest of full disclosure for all of the information generated by both the law firm and the university to be released: all of the interviews, all of the names, all of the findings, all of the conclusions.

For me, I’m not drawing any firm conclusions until I see all of the evidence (which I understand won’t happen).

Edit to add: Colgate's 2023 roster has 3 seniors, 8 juniors, 10 sophs, and 10 frosh. Also they have 8 HS 2023 commits and 8 HS 2024s. Taylor recruited the sophs, frosh, and the two HS recruiting classes. A prior coach (I suspect Heather Young) recruited the current seniors and juniors. The senior class (2023) started out with 8 frosh. The junior class (2024) started with 10 frosh. So 5 of 8 seniors and 2 of 10 juniors have dropped lax along the way. I also looked at the class of 2022 (also recruited by the prior coach), which started with 7 girls as frosh, 3 of which were still on the team as seniors. Natural attrition? Issues with Taylor? Some combination?

These are the facts: She has had a 44% attrition rate in 3 classes. She has a 39% winning percentage. She has been controversial and had to have new policies, codes of conduct, and guidelines implemented to correct her past behavior and to insure that it won't be repeated. She is in a deep hole

A new AD walks in the door, if I were in their shoes, this is how the conversation is going to go.

"Coach, I have reviewed all the documentation pertaining to your tenure here, I have reached out to a random sampling of current and past players, both who stayed with the program and those who left, to better understand the context. We are in unprecedented times as collegiate athletic departments, and with a rapidly shifting landscape, and we need to insure that those in our community have positive experiences during their time here. The facts are you have a 39% winning percentage and a 44% athlete attrition rate in the 3 years you have been here. In addition, your tenure has had major public relations and university scrutiny that was not in a positive light to the university and community. Do you disagree with any of these facts or positions? I am open to hearing your side of the events. What you disclose will not change your position as head coach, as the university conducted a full investigation and prior administrators chose this path forward, but you have a clean slate.

Here is my expectation, after 3 years as you should be in a position to have the team competitive for the upper half of the league and to be competitive in the conference tournament. You should also have a positive, forward-looking culture installed by now. In the past these results and metrics have not been met. My expectation for the program this season and moving forward is that the team achieves these results on the field or has established major momentum toward these metrics. Off the field, I expect content and healthy players, who feel that major improvements have been made in their quality of life through their participation in the program.

That is the bar. If you do not achieve either of these goals, I will find a coach who can lead the program in that direction, but the trajectory of the program is solely up to you and your staff's efforts going forward and I wish you luck and will help you any way I can to achieve these results, but the ball is clearly in your half of the field and your future at our school is unwritten"

[njbill]

Nice speech, except you don’t know all of the relevant facts, notwithstanding what you think. You seem to want to take as gospel what the NY City lawyer wrote. I don’t. You haven’t reviewed all of the relevant documentation. You haven’t seen the University’s report, read the transcripts of the interviews, reviewed the medical records, and on and on. You haven’t interviewed anyone. Nevertheless, you seem to think you know enough to fire off that speech.

For me, I want to hear the other side of the story before jumping to conclusions.

No doubt if you take the NY City lawyer’s letter at face value, it paints a damning picture. But he only interviewed six current and former (i.e., pre-2022 grad year) players. The 2022 roster lists 28 players. If you add 8 seniors and the one grad student from the ’21 roster (since he said he interviewed former players), that totals 36 players. Thus, the lawyer interviewed only 16% of the players in the group he was focusing on. It’s clear he only interviewed players who disliked Taylor. Why didn’t he seek to interview any players who may have had positive things to say about her to get a more complete picture? None of the interviewed players was recruited by Taylor. The lawyer evidently did not reach out to Taylor, herself, to get her side of the story.

The University declined his request to suspend Taylor and conducted a much wider review done by a third party before drawing any conclusions or taking any action. At least 30 people were interviewed, presumably including some players Taylor recruited. I would expect athletic trainers were interviewed to get their perspectives on the injury-related allegations. It appears the third party did not recommend that Taylor be suspended or terminated, which to me suggests the reviewing firm concluded there was another side to the story and the overall picture in the wlax program was not as bad as painted by the lawyer. The firm did recommend some changes which Colgate, to its credit, implemented.

As someone who saw many opening salvo lawyer letters of this nature in my career, I know there is invariably another side to the story. What do others with personal knowledge of the events say? What do these complainants say when cross-examined? Do they back up what the lawyer wrote in his letter? What story does the documentary evidence (medical records, texts, emails, etc.) tell?

The past several years have been rough on all college athletic programs. Just prior to the beginning of the 2019 season, Colgate’s long time coach resigned, and an interim coach had to be hastily appointed. Taylor’s first year was the 2020 Covid year, a year that was challenging for every single program in the county. Due to Patriot League restrictions, the 2021 year was truncated. The upperclass players understandably had had a rather rocky experience in these three years: the coach who recruited them was gone, they’d had an interim coach for a year, and then Covid hit.

In terms of program attrition, yes, 44% of the players left in the 2022, 2023, and 2024 classes. How many were due to Taylor and how many were unrelated? I don’t know. You don’t know. BTW, I don’t think 44% is accurate for all players since she took over in June 2019. It’s just those three classes.

As to her record, Taylor was 3-4 overall, 0-0 (league) in 2020; 5-6, 3-4 (reg. season), 1-1 (playoffs) in 2021; and 6-12, 5-4 (reg. season), 0-1 (playoffs) in 2022. Not a stellar record, to be sure, but 8-8 in league regular season play and 1-2 in the playoffs isn’t terrible. Last year she had one year of her recruited players. This year she will have two.

I said previously that I’m a Colgate grad and have more or less followed Taylor’s career for 20 years. Several people I know well and whose opinions I trust have spoken well of her. I’ve never heard anything remotely like this about her. (Of course, that doesn’t mean these allegations can’t be true.) So if you want to read my posts as defending her, so be it. I believe, however, that I am simply asking for people to be aware that a lot of the relevant facts evidently haven’t come out publicly and, in particular, that one shouldn’t buy hook, line, and sinker what some lawyer writes.

If, as reported, Taylor has a five year contract, I suspect it runs out after the 2024 season. Colgate currently has an interim AD. I’d be surprised if he terminated her during his tenure. I’d guess he’ll leave the decision on Taylor’s future to the new AD. I think the most likely scenario is Taylor serves out the remainder of her contract. The real decision will come when Colgate decides whether or not to extend her after next year. At that point, Taylor will have had two more years to clean things up and improve her record, by then with players she has recruited. We shall see what happens.

[Dr. Tact]

Nice speech, except you don’t know all of the relevant facts, notwithstanding what you think. You seem to want to take as gospel what the NY City lawyer wrote. I don’t. You haven’t reviewed all of the relevant documentation. You haven’t seen the University’s report, read the transcripts of the interviews, reviewed the medical records, and on and on. You haven’t interviewed anyone. Nevertheless, you seem to think you know enough to fire off that speech.

For me, I want to hear the other side of the story before jumping to conclusions.

No doubt if you take the NY City lawyer’s letter at face value, it paints a damning picture. But he only interviewed six current and former (i.e., pre-2022 grad year) players. The 2022 roster lists 28 players. If you add 8 seniors and the one grad student from the ’21 roster (since he said he interviewed former players), that totals 36 players. Thus, the lawyer interviewed only 16% of the players in the group he was focusing on. It’s clear he only interviewed players who disliked Taylor. Why didn’t he seek to interview any players who may have had positive things to say about her to get a more complete picture? None of the interviewed players was recruited by Taylor. The lawyer evidently did not reach out to Taylor, herself, to get her side of the story.

The University declined his request to suspend Taylor and conducted a much wider review done by a third party before drawing any conclusions or taking any action. At least 30 people were interviewed, presumably including some players Taylor recruited. I would expect athletic trainers were interviewed to get their perspectives on the injury-related allegations. It appears the third party did not recommend that Taylor be suspended or terminated, which to me suggests the reviewing firm concluded there was another side to the story and the overall picture in the wlax program was not as bad as painted by the lawyer. The firm did recommend some changes which Colgate, to its credit, implemented.

As someone who saw many opening salvo lawyer letters of this nature in my career, I know there is invariably another side to the story. What do others with personal knowledge of the events say? What do these complainants say when cross-examined? Do they back up what the lawyer wrote in his letter? What story does the documentary evidence (medical records, texts, emails, etc.) tell?

The past several years have been rough on all college athletic programs. Just prior to the beginning of the 2019 season, Colgate’s long time coach resigned, and an interim coach had to be hastily appointed. Taylor’s first year was the 2020 Covid year, a year that was challenging for every single program in the county. Due to Patriot League restrictions, the 2021 year was truncated. The upperclass players understandably had had a rather rocky experience in these three years: the coach who recruited them was gone, they’d had an interim coach for a year, and then Covid hit.

In terms of program attrition, yes, 44% of the players left in the 2022, 2023, and 2024 classes. How many were due to Taylor and how many were unrelated? I don’t know. You don’t know. BTW, I don’t think 44% is accurate for all players since she took over in June 2019. It’s just those three classes.

As to her record, Taylor was 3-4 overall, 0-0 (league) in 2020; 5-6, 3-4 (reg. season), 1-1 (playoffs) in 2021; and 6-12, 5-4 (reg. season), 0-1 (playoffs) in 2022. Not a stellar record, to be sure, but 8-8 in league regular season play and 1-2 in the playoffs isn’t terrible. Last year she had one year of her recruited players. This year she will have two.

I said previously that I’m a Colgate grad and have more or less followed Taylor’s career for 20 years. Several people I know well and whose opinions I trust have spoken well of her. I’ve never heard anything remotely like this about her. (Of course, that doesn’t mean these allegations can’t be true.) So if you want to read my posts as defending her, so be it. I believe, however, that I am simply asking for people to be aware that a lot of the relevant facts evidently haven’t come out publicly and, in particular, that one shouldn’t buy hook, line, and sinker what some lawyer writes.

If, as reported, Taylor has a five year contract, I suspect it runs out after the 2024 season. Colgate currently has an interim AD. I’d be surprised if he terminated her during his tenure. I’d guess he’ll leave the decision on Taylor’s future to the new AD. I think the most likely scenario is Taylor serves out the remainder of her contract. The real decision will come when Colgate decides whether or not to extend her after next year. At that point, Taylor will have had two more years to clean things up and improve her record, by then with players she has recruited. We shall see what happens.

I don't know anything about this subject, but I love the way that you guys "argue". I am simple and to be honest know next to nothing about this, but I appreciate a well written argument, regardless of the position. I am a frustrated architect who watches legal dramas...

[hmmm]

Nice speech, except you don’t know all of the relevant facts, notwithstanding what you think. You seem to want to take as gospel what the NY City lawyer wrote. I don’t. You haven’t reviewed all of the relevant documentation. You haven’t seen the University’s report, read the transcripts of the interviews, reviewed the medical records, and on and on. You haven’t interviewed anyone. Nevertheless, you seem to think you know enough to fire off that speech.

For me, I want to hear the other side of the story before jumping to conclusions.

No doubt if you take the NY City lawyer’s letter at face value, it paints a damning picture. But he only interviewed six current and former (i.e., pre-2022 grad year) players. The 2022 roster lists 28 players. If you add 8 seniors and the one grad student from the ’21 roster (since he said he interviewed former players), that totals 36 players. Thus, the lawyer interviewed only 16% of the players in the group he was focusing on. It’s clear he only interviewed players who disliked Taylor. Why didn’t he seek to interview any players who may have had positive things to say about her to get a more complete picture? None of the interviewed players was recruited by Taylor. The lawyer evidently did not reach out to Taylor, herself, to get her side of the story.

The University declined his request to suspend Taylor and conducted a much wider review done by a third party before drawing any conclusions or taking any action. At least 30 people were interviewed, presumably including some players Taylor recruited. I would expect athletic trainers were interviewed to get their perspectives on the injury-related allegations. It appears the third party did not recommend that Taylor be suspended or terminated, which to me suggests the reviewing firm concluded there was another side to the story and the overall picture in the wlax program was not as bad as painted by the lawyer. The firm did recommend some changes which Colgate, to its credit, implemented.

As someone who saw many opening salvo lawyer letters of this nature in my career, I know there is invariably another side to the story. What do others with personal knowledge of the events say? What do these complainants say when cross-examined? Do they back up what the lawyer wrote in his letter? What story does the documentary evidence (medical records, texts, emails, etc.) tell?

The past several years have been rough on all college athletic programs. Just prior to the beginning of the 2019 season, Colgate’s long time coach resigned, and an interim coach had to be hastily appointed. Taylor’s first year was the 2020 Covid year, a year that was challenging for every single program in the county. Due to Patriot League restrictions, the 2021 year was truncated. The upperclass players understandably had had a rather rocky experience in these three years: the coach who recruited them was gone, they’d had an interim coach for a year, and then Covid hit.

In terms of program attrition, yes, 44% of the players left in the 2022, 2023, and 2024 classes. How many were due to Taylor and how many were unrelated? I don’t know. You don’t know. BTW, I don’t think 44% is accurate for all players since she took over in June 2019. It’s just those three classes.

As to her record, Taylor was 3-4 overall, 0-0 (league) in 2020; 5-6, 3-4 (reg. season), 1-1 (playoffs) in 2021; and 6-12, 5-4 (reg. season), 0-1 (playoffs) in 2022. Not a stellar record, to be sure, but 8-8 in league regular season play and 1-2 in the playoffs isn’t terrible. Last year she had one year of her recruited players. This year she will have two.

I said previously that I’m a Colgate grad and have more or less followed Taylor’s career for 20 years. Several people I know well and whose opinions I trust have spoken well of her. I’ve never heard anything remotely like this about her. (Of course, that doesn’t mean these allegations can’t be true.) So if you want to read my posts as defending her, so be it. I believe, however, that I am simply asking for people to be aware that a lot of the relevant facts evidently haven’t come out publicly and, in particular, that one shouldn’t buy hook, line, and sinker what some lawyer writes.

If, as reported, Taylor has a five year contract, I suspect it runs out after the 2024 season. Colgate currently has an interim AD. I’d be surprised if he terminated her during his tenure. I’d guess he’ll leave the decision on Taylor’s future to the new AD. I think the most likely scenario is Taylor serves out the remainder of her contract. The real decision will come when Colgate decides whether or not to extend her after next year. At that point, Taylor will have had two more years to clean things up and improve her record, by then with players she has recruited. We shall see what happens.

You said many of these same things about Kim Hillier and were totally off base. While you may be correct that the lawyer has blown things out of proportion, it's definitely a bit concerning to see the reports that have come out. Something went down there. Schools aren't in the business of guaranteeing scholarships for no reason.

[njbill]

I think you may have me confused with someone else. I don’t think I posted about her. Just did a search of my posts and don’t see anything. If you think I did and care to cite the post, I’ll be happy to take a look at it.

In general, though, I’m a believer in hearing both sides of a story before drawing conclusions.

Yes, as I have said multiple times, the lawyer letter is disturbing. Again, as I have said multiple times, we haven’t heard the other side of the story. At least I haven’t.

There are at least a couple of reasons why some scholarships were guaranteed. You have cited one. There are others. I don’t know where the truth lies. I suspect you don’t either.

[hmmm]

I think you may have me confused with someone else. I don’t think I posted about her. Just did a search of my posts and don’t see anything. If you think I did and care to cite the post, I’ll be happy to take a look at it.

In general, though, I’m a believer in hearing both sides of a story before drawing conclusions.

Yes, as I have said multiple times, the lawyer letter is disturbing. Again, as I have said multiple times, we haven’t heard the other side of the story. At least I haven’t.

There are at least a couple of reasons why some scholarships were guaranteed. You have cited one. There are others. I don’t know where the truth lies. I suspect you don’t either.

My apologies. Looking back it was Larry that kept defending Kim when he had no idea what had happened there.

[njbill]

Haha. No problem.

Not the first time someone has confused me with Larry. I think you’d be quite surprised if you met the two of us in person.