Untitled Document
Brown Columbia Cornell Dartmouth Harvard Penn Princeton Yale



Username Post: Penn volleyball debacle        (Topic#23038)
Streamers 
Professor
Posts: 8141
Streamers
Loc: NW Philadelphia
Reg: 11-21-04
04-19-19 08:03 AM - Post#283791    

Not directly basketball related, but raises concerns about Penn athletics administration: Captain among others quit the team

 
rbg 
Postdoc
Posts: 3044

Reg: 10-20-14
04-19-19 08:57 AM - Post#283794    
    In response to Streamers

I read that article last night. Pretty bad look for the volleyball coach and the Athletics Department.

The AD also doesn't look good as she continues to delay the release of the findings of the internal investigation of the Jerome Allen debacle.

Oh well, at least she has Penn's PR machine touting her and her department's positives:

https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/sports-talk-m-gr a...

 
Jeff2sf 
Postdoc
Posts: 4466

Reg: 11-22-04
04-19-19 09:14 AM - Post#283798    
    In response to rbg

yup, i'm officially old. this sounds like whining.

three serious incidents:

1. It could be worse... come the f on. I mean the sad thing was I was ready for him to have made (a completely inappropriate) flirting or pass at the woman. Instead he tried to stay positive with a poorly timed joke.

2. Hit in the face... i mean, did the woman actually get hit in the face? I'm guessing not. Maybe because the assistant decided to disregard the command but perhaps also because the assistant knew the coach wasn't serious.

3. He over-reacted to the jacket situation but because he thought there might be bullying. Seems like he had good intentions.

The team didn't do well and people aren't happy. That's a shame. But that's also life. The kids feel they aren't being listened to but sometimes you are being listened to you're just not getting what you want.

 
Jeff2sf 
Postdoc
Posts: 4466

Reg: 11-22-04
04-19-19 09:17 AM - Post#283799    
    In response to Jeff2sf

maybe this was just a poorly written dp article by people still learning. Why did they not want him as coach at the beginning. That could have been explored a bit. Are the 5 other grievances way worse? That could be a thing.

 
palestra38 
Professor
Posts: 32680

Reg: 11-21-04
04-19-19 09:51 AM - Post#283801    
    In response to Jeff2sf

You're right--it's very hard to read. And the case of the player whose coat was missing and found in another locker DOES sound like it was a case of bullying (and she later quit). Unless they talked to someone on the other side of things, it's not balanced at all and we don't know if those who object to the coach are in the right or in the wrong.

 
Jeff2sf 
Postdoc
Posts: 4466

Reg: 11-22-04
04-19-19 09:54 AM - Post#283803    
    In response to palestra38

yeah and another thing. maybe they hid the coat and then when they realized how serious the situation was, they found a discreet way to "find" it in the next locker.

I believe I used that move approximately 19 times in my childhood.

but there COULD be five instances of racial or sexual or physical abuse that we don't know about because the people didn't want to go on the record/even if unnamed would be so obvious to the coach as to be named. So I don't want to say they're wrong. But the reporting left me feeling like there was no there there

 
Streamers 
Professor
Posts: 8141
Streamers
Loc: NW Philadelphia
Reg: 11-21-04
04-19-19 10:48 AM - Post#283808    
    In response to Jeff2sf

I agree this one is a bit hard to sort out, but, based on the facts we know (the defections, the formal grievances, the record, the turnover) we do know something is very wrong with how the program is being administered. If anything like this happened within the hoops program, we would be apoplectic... oh wait...

 
palestra38 
Professor
Posts: 32680

Reg: 11-21-04
04-19-19 11:08 AM - Post#283810    
    In response to Streamers

Agreed, but it appears that the team opposed the hiring of this coach in the first place. Why? That should be one of the key answers of the article and it is not.

 
mbaprof 
Senior
Posts: 342

Age: 66
Reg: 12-24-11
04-19-19 03:40 PM - Post#283818    
    In response to rbg

I know the volleyball captain identified, she is a very high quality student athlete and person.

 
SRP 
Postdoc
Posts: 4894

Reg: 02-04-06
04-20-19 04:26 PM - Post#283828    
    In response to mbaprof

The high rate of turnover of the coaches prior to the current coach's arrival lends some credibility to Jeff's doubts. I have similar qualms about the story, which raises more questions than it answers.

 
rbg 
Postdoc
Posts: 3044

Reg: 10-20-14
05-02-19 09:29 AM - Post#284102    
    In response to SRP

The DP has an update article on the Women's Volleyball team.

https://www.thedp.com/article/2019/05/penn- volleyb...

It goes into more depth about the lack of confidence the team had in the coach during the interview process and during his time as coach.

It seems that the players are still not satisfied with the communication from the Athletic Department.

A bit more detail on the role of Matt Valenti, Associate AD. From my read, he does not come off too well in this article.

Looking at Valenti's page at the Athletics website, it is interesting to see that he was Assistant to the Deputy Director of Athletics from 2012-15, where part of his job included serving as a liason to the University's Admissions Office and Financial Aid Office for 32 sports. Since that time frame overlapped with Jerome Allen's dealings with the Esformes family from 2013-2015, I wonder if his name will be mentioned in any report in the Allen investigation?

Also, the DP wrote about problems with the softball team in 2018. The players had problems with Coach Leslie King, but she is still in charge of the team.

https://www.thedp.com/article/2018/02/penn- softbal...

https://www.thedp.com/article/2018/02/penn- softbal...

https://www.thedp.com/article/2018/04/penn- softbal...


 
rbg 
Postdoc
Posts: 3044

Reg: 10-20-14
05-07-19 09:46 AM - Post#284247    
    In response to rbg

I posted this on the Cornell board, but decided to cross post it here as well since it relates to Penn.

Inspired by a report in last year's Daily Pennsylvanian about problems players had with the head coach of the softball team, several of Cornell's softball players reached out to the Daily Sun to discuss problems they have had with their coach.

https://cornellsun.com/2019/05/06/softball-p layers...

The article, like the 2018 DP articles about the softball team and the 2019 DP articles about the women's volleyball team, notes the many athletes who have left the program and the significant problems (physical and emotional) that others have had to face.

AD Noel, unlike Penn's AD Grace Calhoun, actually communicated to the paper's reporter about the issues. He feels that he and his staff have taken the accusations seriously, but there is nothing there. The athletes feel otherwise.

It is interesting that the UNC women's basketball team members and their parents made complaints about the coach, but it wasn't until the AD had an independent group come in and review the program that real changes occurred. With these 3 teams at Cornell & Penn having such internal problems, it would seem reasonable for an independent group to come in and evaluate to see if the players or the coach/administrators are more correct in their comments.

I know that is unlikely to happen, since Calhoun for example has only had an outside consultant oversee the school's own internal review of the Allen situation instead of having an independent evaluator.

 
Icon Legend Permissions Topic Options
Report Post

Quote Post

Quick Reply

Print Topic

Email Topic

1203 Views





Copyright © 2004-2012 Basketball U. Terms of Use for our Site and Privacy Policy are applicable to you. All rights reserved.
Basketball U. and its subsidiaries are not affiliated in any way with any NCAA athletic conference or member institution.
FusionBB™ Version 2.1 | ©2003-2007 InteractivePHP, Inc.
Execution time: 0.23 seconds.   Total Queries: 17   Zlib Compression is on.
All times are (GMT -0500) Eastern. Current time is 09:40 AM
Top