by Kent Sterling
In this corner – the beleaguered 49 year-old administrator who has yet to 
work a single day as the athletic director at Rutgers University. In the other corner – a 20 year-old quarterback who has been suspended as a student for the fall term from Notre Dame because of academic misconduct. One has owned a mistake, and the other has obfuscated, dodged, and lied.
Wouldn’t you hope that Julie Hermann, the person entrusted to provide a safe and rewarding environment for hundreds of student-athletes at Rutgers, would be the person who set a decent example and accepted accountability for her mistakes?
Golson released a statement as a result of his suspension, “I have been informed by the University of Notre Dame that due to my poor academic judgment that I have been suspended from the university for the 2013 fall term. I take full responsibility for my poor choices and will do all that is asked of me to regain the trust of my family, friends, teammates, coaches and the entire Notre Dame community.
“My parents and the community I grew up in have instilled values in me that have and will continue to allow me to be successful in the future. There have been many lessons learned as I worked to become the starting quarterback at Notre Dame, and each was a result of coach Kelly’s belief in me as an athlete and a person.
“At this point, I understand how my integrity could be in question, but I want to reassure my supporters that through this experience I will return a better student athlete as well as a better individual.”
I believe that he will emerge from this a better person, but given his contrition, he’s already leaps and bounds ahead of the supposedly more mature Hermann, who had no recollection of a wedding for a coach she subsequently fired for becoming pregnant, according to the coach. Hermann also guaranteed that there was no video of her saying that the coach better not become pregnant by saying during the press conference announcing her hiring, “There is no video, trust me.”
Those statements came despite Hermann serving as a bridesmaid in the wedding, and the video in question being entered into evidence during a wrongful dismissal lawsuit filed by the bride/coach for whom Hermann stood.
Hermann also claimed to have no recollection of a meeting with her athletic director and team when she served as a volleyball coach at the University of Tennessee. It was during this meeting, according to members of that team, that Hermann quit as coach.
The meeting was prompted by a letter from the entire team that served as a list of grievances against Hermann and her abilities and methods of leadership, and ended when she left after saying she would no longer coach the team.
Coaches might not recall much other than the losses that gnaw at their souls, but they sure as hell remember a mutiny that results in their resignation.
Whether Hermann was an abusive coach or not in 1997 isn’t an issue, but her lack of willingness to accept the truths as presented through some fairly routine media scrutiny shows an outrageous lack of character. It also shows Rutgers University as a slapdick operation that hires to major positions without any look into the background of its applicants after a period of controversy rivaling some of the most troubling in recent memory.
Hermann could have very easily said, “Look, in becoming the leader I am, some mistakes have were made. Those mistakes have made me the person I am, and will help me manage coaches away from the behavior that crosses the line between leadership and abuse. I fired an assistant coach who was underperforming. She happened to be pregnant, and there was a video where I was a little bit flippant about the potential for her to become pregnant. Her termination wasn’t about pregnancy, but my attempt at humor will ill-timed.”
End of story, but no, she took the deceitful road, so the story continues to roll, and probably won’t stop until both she and Rutgers president Robert Barchi are crushed by it.
The 20 year-old gets it. He owns it. The 49 year-old does what many administrators always do – duck and cover.
If I were in a position to hire one or the other – I’m offering the job to Golson.
One of your top 5 posts of all time. Should be required reading by every high school student.
One of the things about Notre Dame and many of her supporters that is really annoying – and causes many nasty e-mails and comments from the flora and fauna and the linsey and the woolsey out there in cyberland – is posts like this, laden to the gills with holier-than-thou.
Notre Dame is a good place, but there are other good places. Notre Dame for the most part has good people, as do a lot of other places. Notre Dame has some bad people, other places have bad people.
IMO this post is really unneeded – It serves no good purpose.
FYI – I went to Notre Dame
This post was about how a 20 year-old showed some character while a 49 year-old who has been hired to hire mentors for 20 year-olds did not. It has nothing at all to do with Notre Dame, other than to mention that the 20 year-old used to attend the school.
Nothing to do with Notre Dame? Surely you jest – it has EVERYTHING to do with Notre Dame.
It has to do with a young man who made a mistake while playing for Notre Dame. The story broke in close proximity to the Hermann story breaking, so the timeline invited a comparison. Notre Dame’s lack of humility is beyond argument, but it has nothing to do with a kid owning up and a future Big 10 AD refusing to.
Your point – “Notre Dame’s lack of humility is beyond argument”.
Well said – let’s leave it at that.
Ok?
It seems that if you went to ND you would be smart enough to understand the article was not about ND, but about the content of the character of one, EG. Perhaps you should read it again. You will do better this time I promise.
This young man made a big mistake and he owned up to it, for which he is to be congratulated.
“The article was not about Notre Dame” – the article was about a young man who played quarterback for Notre Dame, perhaps the most visible position in all of college football, who got caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing and was expelled. He owned up to his mistake.
If he had not been the quarterback for Notre Dame – would the article have been written?
Perhaps my point is better made like this – Notre Dame does a lot of things well, but humble is not one of them.
Thanks for the belly laugh on a Friday morning. Thats rich. The QB of ND may have been high profile 25 or more years ago. Today, uh, not so much, at least not to anyone under age 40 with cable TV or an Internet connection. Brian Kelly hasn’t even known who Brian Kelly’s QB is the past 2-3 years. It was Rees, then the one guy who ran, then Rees, then Golson, then Rees, then Golson again.
Golson seemingly taking the high road has nothing to do with a legacy program mired in the past, struggling to regain relevance today.
Herrmann aside, Rutgers, to my knowledge, doesn’t employ a team of lawyers defending pedophiles. Life in the haughty bubble. Population: you.
I mean seriously, do you really think if it was AJ McCarran or Johnny Manziel this article wouldn’t have been written?!? It would be actual news, not a crawl on the bottom of ESPN.
If the Rutgers job doesn’t work out, it is obvious Ms. Hermann is very qualified to work for the government. The IRS may soon have an opening or perhaps the Attorney General’s office.
The IRS has an opening in their Cincinatti office.
Ms. Sterling;
Me again. Your sentence “It shows Rutgers University as a slapdick operation” …..
‘Slapdick’ is an adjective with which I am not familiar. Would you please define it?
A simple ‘whoops’ would suffice.
Slapdick – a person or group with nothing better to do than slap his/their … well, you know.