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In just a few hours, several of our best former players with absolute selfless dedication to Columbia football will bring their suggestions and observations about the program to Rick Taylor.
Getting their message across will likely take patience and courage.
I say patience, because there will be those in that meeting who will likely waste valuable time making useless, self-serving or defeatist comments. It will take patience to not let those useless statements agitate those who are prepared to get to the point and the core of the problem.
And I say courage, because as illogical and inappropriate as it seems, it appears certain members of the Athletic Department including outgoing Director Dianne Murphy herself will be in the meeting. It will take courage to tell the truth about the current situation and indict many of the people in room for their complicit responsibility for the problems. Taylor MUST hear about how Murphy unethically hired Pete Mangurian in the first place. He MUST hear that many of the core supporters of the program have doubts about the effectiveness of his review as long as Murphy is even nominally involved with it.
And that's just the beginning.
So take a moment if you can now and make a wish that our honest representatives at Faculty House take as much courage as they can with them.
FEAR
Over the last decade, I've noticed an increasing level of fear coming from the players and their families when it comes to discussing inherent problems with the football program.
Players who have been physically and emotionally abused have in just about every case decided to clam up about it and simply quit the team rather than bring their concerns and legitimate complaints to the administration or to the public.
In many cases I understand and respect that, but what I don't condone or respect is the climate of intimidation and fear that the last two coaching staffs have used on the players and their families in hopes of keeping them quiet.
The biggest weapon in their arsenal is the misconception they perpetuate that a student-athlete can lose his or her financial aid package if they report coaching abuse or misconduct to the administration.
THIS IS NOT TRUE!
The second weapon they use is simply leaning on the cachet of the university name to make in tacitly clear that no football player and his non-Ivy educated parents can do anything to threaten such a great institution such as Columbia.
THIS IS ALSO NOT TRUE!
Columbia cannot successfully cover up or suppress legitimate complaints. That's why the Chief of Investigations, Deirdre Fuchs, is now looking into the serious allegations made by a large number of current players.
It's true that internal investigations are usually mostly meant to protect the company's or the institution's leaders, but that could simply mean that President Lee Bollinger will be protected by the ousting of Mangurian, who is the primary offender anyway.
I'm okay with that and so are the players.
And whenever a coach, or a program leader of any kind has to use fear to impose a Mafia-like policy of "Omerta," you know you have a problem, Loyalty has to be earned, and Mangurian has done little to earn anyone's loyalty.
The Columbia football program has not been generally healthy for decades, but it's never been sicker than it is now.
The obvious move is to remove the cancer than is causing the most immediate damage. But even though this is so obvious, it's going to take patience and courage to make it happen.
24 comments:
I don't know what football players you've been talking too. But as a current player myself, a lot of your statements about the team and "a large number of current players" are laughable. Please don't speak on behalf of the players like you're on the team and you know everyone's mindset. You clearly don't. Haven't talked to me or a majority of my teammates once. And I understand that its because you have your own agenda, so you only want to hear the negative opinions and pump them up to be much more than they're not. That's fine. We're fighting your opinion of us as much as we are fighting everyone else's.
Yes, we are aware that a good number of players, mostly the freshmen and some sophomores seem to support Mangurian and the staff.
That's their right.
But when more than 20 other players and their families reach out with serious complaints that result in an internal investigation by the university, then we all know something is up.
We also know something is up just by looking at the games. 0-21 is not competitive or even remotely so. There's no reason for that other than poor coaching and a poorly-run program.
What do you think of Pete's leadership qualities Rmfl? Do you believe the program will turn around with Coach Pete and current coaching staff in place? If so, what is your basis for that view (which would correct what is being said in this forum)?
One more clarification:
My only agenda is getting this program to an acceptable level of winning.
I used to have a similar policy of keeping things quiet and supporting the existing coaching staff and administration with no questions asked.
But that led me to not report some serious incidents committed by the previous coaching staff that included one very public case of physical abuse.
Since then, I have vowed never to be such a cog in the machine ever again. I understood then, and I understand now that this will make me the enemy of a number of people.
But when your enemies are coaches with 21-game losing streaks and a 3-27 records, well you get the idea.
There are names on that list that were never even approached about being on it.
Yes I believe in Coach. No coach catches the ball for us or makes tackles. We have to play better, and we will.
I know what you see from afar, and I know what goes on on the inside. You only know what you see from afar. As painful as it is sometimes you have to have the guts to stop making excuses and just play better.
I've said enough. Thanks for the support. See you in September.
Um RMFL, there has been no list of players complaining about Mangurian published here or anywhere else.
If you actually read the blog you'd know that.
That last comment makes it clear that you were put up to this by a coach, maybe Mangurian himself. And it confirms the information I received last week that Mangurian was scrambling to set up some group of other players to refute the claims of the ones who had the courage to complain.
An anonymous post by someone climbing to be a player is laughable. Based upon the grammar and writing style, I'd wager that RMFL is not a player or CU student.
RMFL - if you are a player and support the current staff, sign your name if you want credibility.
Go Lions!,
the fact is that the coach cant catch or block, but the talent he has recruited isn't good enough to win at this level. Sorry, as a former player, it just isn't. Columbia used to get by with a few kids like that, but when the majority of the new recruits are like that, well it does not bode well for success.
Nobody may want to hear that, but it is what it is.
Thanks Bob for that. Yeah, I realize there's a good chance RMFL is not really a player or a current player. But just to show my "agenda" I'm published his/her comment anyway.
Gents
I have just returned from the meeting. There were about 20 attendees, all FB. 5 were CAEC members and at least one other was a regular on this blog.
Rick Taylor is totally impressive both as a straight shooter and someone who knows his business. I have great confidence in him.
There were no holds barred in the meet. Every possible subject you could imagine was brought up. No one from the AD dept was there. Rick has everything he needs to look at things.
Caveat: ground rules were 1) no quoting; everything off the record. 2) NO discussion of present staff. He will be looking at that on his own and he did not want meeting to go down a rathole.
Bottom line; it was as productive as I hoped for, and I think we're off to a good start.
Rmfl you sound like a battered wife but more likely Danny in disguise.
Re: RFML
I want to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Boss, if you are legit, give us some more info re why you are solid with the coach, how you think things will improve, etc.
We aren't here to lynch anyone, just to get things fixed. Unfortunately we are all a little frustrated (pissed off) at this point.
This is going to be interesting, since Rick Taylor knows what it takes to be at least competitive in the league. Let's see what Columbia is willing to implement . This could be a watershed moment in the history of Columbia Football.
Coach, from your lips to God's ears, but at Columbia we have become accustomed to hoping for the best and expecting and getting the worst.
Jake. I kinda take offense to your remark regarding the previous staff. In my tenure I did not witness any bullying or physical abuse, nor did I ever hear of players financial aid being threatened (most of us know that you can't touch a financial aid pkg for any reason).
Tony: you mean you never a certain OC strangle a backup QB in practice? Because everyone else did.
Dawg,
That's the best news we've had in years!Thanks to you and the other CAEC members for making the effort to attend and represent us.Did you get the sense that our input into the process is over at this point?
Did Rick Taylor indicate how long the evaluation process might take?
I have read here previously that there was a player recruited from Cambridge, MA. That saw playing time in 2013, that did not get on the field in the 45/0 2014 game at Harvard. With his friends and family in attendance.
If true, it's my opinion, that that in itself is grounds for questioning the lack of respect of the players by the entire coaching staff.
If I am the AD, someone gets fired for this slap in the face of a dedicated player and his parents.
How can we recruit anyone if this attitude is SOP of the head coach?
Doc
Input is ongoing.
He is supposed to complete the report by 12/18 or thereabout.
There is a stroy in Spec that 25 current players wrote a letter to Bollinger and others detailing compalints against Mangurian. The story goes on to state taht teh letter ahs now been withdrwan. Que pasa?
About 11 days ago, I received a copy of a letter many players signed and sent to the top leaders in the Columbia administration.
While I have no way of corroborating the claims made in the letter, based on other sources and reports I've received over the years I deemed them to be at least credible.
I waited on making these serious allegations public for those 11 days because I confirmed that the University was indeed internally investigating the claims.
I believe that after 11 days or so, it was enough time for everyone involved to be prepared for them to go public.
The names of the players who supposedly signed the letter are known to me but I will not reveal them.
Those of you who have read this blog for almost 10 years know that I vowed to no longer sit on any credible reports of physical or severe emotional abuse by coaches. I did that once out of loyalty to a "code of silence" and that led to more abuse and more failure by the coach involved. I simply will not do that again.
Dawg, is the Dec.18 date just for his evaluation of the problems, or is it for the whole enchilada including solutions? If the latter, it seems an awfully short time.
I believe I heard that he will submit his report and recommendations around that time.
With Rick's background and smarts, I don't see any issue with the time table. He's done this a bunch of times successfully. BUT, as indicated here by others, the implementation is the real key.
Very suspicious that there is the possibility the players' letter to the administration was retracted?
Any other football program and Pete would have been bounced already. There has been a lot of turnover in coaches across the country as their normally is this time of year. Columbia is the ONLY program hanging onto the known quantity that is not working out. CU is the only school that clings to its boat anchor of doom.
Get rid of the guy already. What is so difficult to understand they were robbed blind with his hire?
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