Larry Fitzgerald: Tracy Claeys: Gopher scapegoat

[PMWinSTP]

Well let's put it this way. The AD's may have cared but didn't have the balls or the pull to do much after the McKinley Boston fiasco. Remember Badger Joel? Most people on this board thought he was sabotaging our athletic dept.

He screwed up hiring Brewster but overall he was a pretty successful AD.

 

[Calm Down]

At some point your daughter or niece will be treated in the same manner by 10 football players. You won't like it.

Yeah because all ten players were in the room. I get something unfortunate happened but there are a few things that I think everyone seems to be forgetting:

1. No charges were filed, I get the EOAA report doesn't look good and I'm not saying something unfortunate didn't happen but the county attorney reviewed the file twice and came to the same conclusion both times, no criminal activity could be proven. All we have to go on is a report done my a non-legal entity

2. Not all 10 players were even in the room that night. We are flippantly assigning equal guilt to all 10 players when a few were not even present for the alleged event.

3. Although poorly worded and executed the boycott was over not the players who were in the room that evening, but rather those who were not in the room and the lack of evidence or hearing before the University suspended them and released their names to the entire nation which has essentially labeled them all as rapists and that will never wash off. Every time someone does a google search on those players names this incident will pop up. Is it fair that those who were not involved will forever be associated with this event without even having the opportunity to defend themselves at a hearing?

4. ESPN had multiple commentators say that they have seen coaches at much bigger schools do worse things than this and not even get reprimanded. Let's remember all Tracy did was send a Tweet supporting his players. In fact, at the time, many applauded the way he handled the situation, he backed his players in a very non-public way i.e. without a press conference.

5. The reason this stayed in the media for as long as it did was because Coyle and Kaler never made a definitive statement on Tracy until after the cotton bowl. Coyle was covering his "behind" to ensure he could get PJ Fleck before he fired Tracy and turned a one to two day story into a month long story. Leadership at its finest!

6. Coyle absolutely exploited the situation to have a reason, any reason, to fire a 9-4 coach in his first year at Minnesota. It was obvious in his press conference after he fired Claeys that he was emphasizing the "social behavior" of student athletes event though the football program had been relatively clean over the past 6 years until this one-time event, where again, no charges were filed.

I don't know how anyone who rationally looks at the entirety of the situation and doesn't see how Claeys was turned into a scapegoat. I am a proud alumni of the University of Minnesota but was and still am severely disappointing in the lack of leadership shown by our AD and President.

 

[GFBfan]

There is enough blame to go around on all three of them.
Claeys mishandled the situation in not suspending the 5 for the rest of the season. His support of his players(the rest of the team) was not an issue to me. To me, he WAS NOT supporting the incident nor what happened, he along with the players, were supporting a more fair and open process along with the idea that the new 5 should not have had their names linked to the first 5.
As a first year head coach, he made some mistakes and I know he learned from them and would have been a better HC in the coming years. We will never know if he would have been able to improve on the success he had this year.
Coyle on the other hand was not a first year AD. In all his time as an AD he has probably handled many situations of varying difficulty similar to this one. He should have stepped in when the incident first happened and when Claeys didn't suspend the players for the year he should have! Had that happened, I don't believe the other 5 would be linked to the incident, because all would have been taken care of before the EOAA would have had their investigation.

Since the EOAA did the investigation, both Coyle and Kaler could have done a better job explaining the suspension to the media and the players. Grouping all 10 as being apart of the incident was a total lack of communication on their part and a major failure.

Letting Tracy Claeys go as head coach was a decision that Coyle made. I am fine with that. Coyle didn't think he could be the face of the program and decided to move in a new direction. What bothered me about that is the way it was done. He waited too long, should have been done after Wisconsin game, (my guess is he knew they were going to suspend 10 and he didn't want to do that without Tracy around as a fall guy. The boycott was not forseen at that time, but had Coach Claeys not been around anymore, I think the players wouldn't played in the game.) Then his press conference announcing the firing was completely uncalled for. The academic achievement, on field success, and even the off the field success(yes there were failures also) of the Kill/Claeys time did not need to be denigrated. They did an excellent job of changing the culture and attitude within the football program while here. All Coyle had to say is we are moving in a new direction, thank Tracy for his year and a half of service and for keeping the Gopher Football on the right path.

Nothing Bob said referenced what the players did. The FIVE players used poor judgement at best and should be gone if it was not consensual.

 

[Johnnyboy18]

NM

 

[Johnnyboy18]

NM

 

[PMWinSTP]

Yeah because all ten players were in the room. I get something unfortunate happened but there are a few things that I think everyone seems to be forgetting:

1. No charges were filed, I get the EOAA report doesn't look good and I'm not saying something unfortunate didn't happen but the county attorney reviewed the file twice and came to the same conclusion both times, no criminal activity could be proven. All we have to go on is a report done my a non-legal entity

2. Not all 10 players were even in the room that night. We are flippantly assigning equal guilt to all 10 players when a few were not even present for the alleged event.

3. Although poorly worded and executed the boycott was over not the players who were in the room that evening, but rather those who were not in the room and the lack of evidence or hearing before the University suspended them and released their names to the entire nation which has essentially labeled them all as rapists and that will never wash off. Every time someone does a google search on those players names this incident will pop up. Is it fair that those who were not involved will forever be associated with this event without even having the opportunity to defend themselves at a hearing?

4. ESPN had multiple commentators say that they have seen coaches at much bigger schools do worse things than this and not even get reprimanded. Let's remember all Tracy did was send a Tweet supporting his players. In fact, at the time, many applauded the way he handled the situation, he backed his players in a very non-public way i.e. without a press conference.

5. The reason this stayed in the media for as long as it did was because Coyle and Kaler never made a definitive statement on Tracy until after the cotton bowl. Coyle was covering his "behind" to ensure he could get PJ Fleck before he fired Tracy and turned a one to two day story into a month long story. Leadership at its finest!

6. Coyle absolutely exploited the situation to have a reason, any reason, to fire a 9-4 coach in his first year at Minnesota. It was obvious in his press conference after he fired Claeys that he was emphasizing the "social behavior" of student athletes event though the football program had been relatively clean over the past 6 years until this one-time event, where again, no charges were filed.

I don't know how anyone who rationale looks at the entirety of the situation and doesn't see how Claeys was turned into a scapegoat. I am a proud alumni of the University of Minnesota but was and still am severely disappointing in the lack of leadership shown by our AD and President.

Well done. Wish I could say it'll help, but there are a few posters here that are OK casting a very wide net and condemning anyone who does not share their extremely myopic view.

 

[STPGopher]

(1) In my opinion Claeys lied because I believe Mark Coyle when he says that him and Claeys discussed the suspensions together and Claeys didn't voice any opposition to it with Coyle at that time. Then later he says he was against it?
(2) No they haven't. In fact they've been quite consistent on the matter, which is obviously why you chose not to provide any evidence of this.
(3) Yes, people are upset that Claeys was mistreated, without realizing that it was his own actions, and actions of his team during his watch, that got him fired. You continue to give Claeys a pass, even though all of this happened on his watch. He was the head coach and he allowed a 17 year old recruit to engage in group sex. He is to blame for allowing that type of thing to occur with a recruit, he needs to make sure the recruits are being taken care of and are with a responsible chaperone for the weekend.
(4) This is where you are dead wrong, and very naive. You, me, and everyone on this planet knows that the 2016 season was a one year trial for Tracey Claeys. That is the definition of an interim coach. He was an interim coach without the official interim tag, and you know it. I will say again, Coyle didn't truly fire him (although yes, technically he did). He simply decided to not hire Claeys on as the full time head coach of this program. Keep burying your head in the sand and believing that Claeys wasn't an interim coach on a one year trial, but you're alone in that regard.

Bob, you may want to think about who you are defending. In your mind, it's not the ten players that may have raped a girl that are the problem. In your mind it's not the head coach's fault for allowing this type of culture and behavior to occur with recruits in town for visits. Nope, it couldn't be their fault. Instead it's the fault of two men who, by all accounts, had more information to go off of than anyone else had.

I would also like to know why you're so rude to posters who simply have a different opinion on this matter than you have. I haven't posted much here. I make one post and you respond in a very rude and child like manner. Grow up and engage in a discussion like an adult.

Hard to discuss anything related to this as absolute fact. We don't know if all ten players "Raped" her. IIRC According to the report, not all ten are facing expulsion due to activities that happened that night. IIRC one or more were not in the building. There are so many questions about this case that may never be answered. The questions I have are:

If the total was between people were 10 and 20, what happened to the other 1 to 15?

Were there non-football players involved?

Did anyone ever fully investigate the scope?

How impaired were the people "known" participants?

If the plaintiff downed 4 to 5, or 4 to 6 shots and came off as coherent, did she have a Vodka Sam type of tolerance level?

Why did her "friends" leaver her?

What made them feel she was safe?

Before I post, I will say that all of the players that engaged in sexual activity should have excused themselves from that particular situation. No need to say anything else because ALL involved will be haunted by this for the rest of their lives.

 

[lmh839]

Some people just need to realize Claeys was not fired based on wins and losses. He was not fired for one specific incident. The point of the matter is that Coyle wanted to bring in his own football guy. We can twist this story as many ways as possible and play the "he said, she said" game over and over but it has become pretty clear over the last 10 days that Coyle had a plan in place all along. Claeys was essentially an interim head coach since day one. Why else would you have only a three-year deal with a very low buyout?? The University hired Jerry Kill as their head football coach, not Tracy Claeys. The University essentially had no choice but to name Tracy Claeys head coach and "extend" him when Kill abruptly retired to keep the football program on track.

Say what you want, but at the end of the day, it's pretty hard to be a "scapegoat" when you only signed a three-year contract with a very low buyout in the first place...well before any of these events took place. Even Glen Mason himself told Tracy that was a mistake to take the 3-year deal and that no coach would come here without the security of a 5-year deal. So Tracy pretty much did this to himself from day one. He was a great defensive coordinator under Kill but was just not head coach material, especially in a Power 5 conference. He will land on his feet again as a defensive coordinator but we all just need to move on and look at the big picture and realize there are bigger and better days ahead for Gopher football.

 

[Iceland12]

Claeys is not a scapegoat. He flat out lied to his players about him not having anything to do with the suspensions, then lied to the public about it as well. We finally have a president and AD who bypassed the search committee and went out and got their first choice for head coach while paying huge amounts of money that this school has never been willing to pay before. Kaler and Coyle are both the kinds of administrators people on this board have been begging to come here for years, administrators who care about winning in football and basketball and are willing to pay like the Michigans and Ohio States of the world. Now that we have them and this dream is becoming reality, we're complaining because Claeys got his damn feelings hurt? We hired Jerry Kill 6 years ago, not Tracey Claeys. Coyle didn't fire Claeys, you don't fire an interim coach (which is really what Claeys was). Coyle simply decided not to hire Claeys for this job, which was the right decision as Claeys has no business being a head coach in the Big Ten.

We need Kaler and especially Coyle to stick around a long time.

Bullshatt

 

[saintpaulguy]

Um, stop using it? It's not that complicated.

The tradition seems to be to sell it to the next user.

 

[Iceland12]

Yeah because all ten players were in the room. I get something unfortunate happened but there are a few things that I think everyone seems to be forgetting:

1. No charges were filed, I get the EOAA report doesn't look good and I'm not saying something unfortunate didn't happen but the county attorney reviewed the file twice and came to the same conclusion both times, no criminal activity could be proven. All we have to go on is a report done my a non-legal entity

2. Not all 10 players were even in the room that night. We are flippantly assigning equal guilt to all 10 players when a few were not even present for the alleged event.

3. Although poorly worded and executed the boycott was over not the players who were in the room that evening, but rather those who were not in the room and the lack of evidence or hearing before the University suspended them and released their names to the entire nation which has essentially labeled them all as rapists and that will never wash off. Every time someone does a google search on those players names this incident will pop up. Is it fair that those who were not involved will forever be associated with this event without even having the opportunity to defend themselves at a hearing?

4. ESPN had multiple commentators say that they have seen coaches at much bigger schools do worse things than this and not even get reprimanded. Let's remember all Tracy did was send a Tweet supporting his players. In fact, at the time, many applauded the way he handled the situation, he backed his players in a very non-public way i.e. without a press conference.

5. The reason this stayed in the media for as long as it did was because Coyle and Kaler never made a definitive statement on Tracy until after the cotton bowl. Coyle was covering his "behind" to ensure he could get PJ Fleck before he fired Tracy and turned a one to two day story into a month long story. Leadership at its finest!

6. Coyle absolutely exploited the situation to have a reason, any reason, to fire a 9-4 coach in his first year at Minnesota. It was obvious in his press conference after he fired Claeys that he was emphasizing the "social behavior" of student athletes event though the football program had been relatively clean over the past 6 years until this one-time event, where again, no charges were filed.

I don't know how anyone who rationale looks at the entirety of the situation and doesn't see how Claeys was turned into a scapegoat. I am a proud alumni of the University of Minnesota but was and still am severely disappointing in the lack of leadership shown by our AD and President.

Well said.

 

[Iceland12]

Hope your daughter or niece reports sexual assault and then have random people on the Internet claim it was consensual.

Just going the full d-bag route huh? Tough when you don't have a real argument isn't it.

 

[A_Slab_of_Bacon]

Hope your daughter or niece reports sexual assault and then have random people on the Internet claim it was consensual.

What the hell dude...

 

[Block M]

Tracy Claeys was not The Answer. Nine wins against a middling schedule was the apex of the very respectable Kill-Claeys regime. Zero wins against the Evil from the East. Time to move on.

 

[Johnnyboy18]

What the hell dude...

Is it not what he is doing?

 

[STPGopher]

Some people just need to realize Claeys was not fired based on wins and losses. He was not fired for one specific incident. The point of the matter is that Coyle wanted to bring in his own football guy. We can twist this story as many ways as possible and play the "he said, she said" game over and over but it has become pretty clear over the last 10 days that Coyle had a plan in place all along. Claeys was essentially an interim head coach since day one. Why else would you have only a three-year deal with a very low buyout?? The University hired Jerry Kill as their head football coach, not Tracy Claeys. The University essentially had no choice but to name Tracy Claeys head coach and "extend" him when Kill abruptly retired to keep the football program on track.

Say what you want, but at the end of the day, it's pretty hard to be a "scapegoat" when you only signed a three-year contract with a very low buyout in the first place...well before any of these events took place. Even Glen Mason himself told Tracy that was a mistake to take the 3-year deal and that no coach would come here without the security of a 5-year deal. So Tracy pretty much did this to himself from day one. He was a great defensive coordinator under Kill but was just not head coach material, especially in a Power 5 conference. He will land on his feet again as a defensive coordinator but we all just need to move on and look at the big picture and realize there are bigger and better days ahead for Gopher football.

Well stated. I got the impression that Coyle had something up his sleeve even before the case against the original four players became common knowledge. Tracys "desperation" to become a head coach came back to bite him.

 

[A_Slab_of_Bacon]

Is it not what he is doing?

What are you doing wishing that **** on someone?

It's not ok to you, unless say you're arguing with someone on the internet, then you wish it on someone's kid?

 

[STPGopher]

Is it not what he is doing?

Quote Originally Posted by Johnnyboy18 View Post
Hope your daughter or niece reports sexual assault and then have random people on the Internet claim it was consensual.

 

[Iceland12]

Tracy Claeys was not The Answer. Nine wins against a middling schedule was the apex of the very respectable Kill-Claeys regime. Zero wins against the Evil from the East. Time to move on.

In favor big time with the hiring of Fleck. Hated the way that Coyle and Kaler have handled it.

However, reading that this big Michigan fan is happy that Claeys was fired, should give everybody some pause.

 

[Calm Down]

Tracy Claeys was not The Answer. Nine wins against a middling schedule was the apex of the very respectable Kill-Claeys regime. Zero wins against the Evil from the East. Time to move on.

Dude, in his first season we improved our win total by 4 we nearly beat Penn State @ Penn State (you know they did win the Big Ten), lost to Nebraska @ Nebraska by 7, Iowa by 7 and were leading at half against Wisconsin. During the season we were breaking in a new Offensive Coordinator and Line coach and had key suspensions in our secondary. How is this considered the ceiling? Am I thrilled we lost the games we did, no? But it is tough to argue that we were not trending up after last season with Claeys.

 

[lmh839]

The truth is that Penn State loss killed any chance of momentum for the football program heading into the Iowa game. The Gophers were 3-0 heading into Big Ten play and should have won at Penn State, however, they lost in OT killing any momentum. If you win at Penn State and come into the Iowa game at 4-0, that stadium is filled with many more people. That was a very disappointing crowd given it was the biggest home game of the year and played in early October with good weather. Claeys never had that "wow factor" as the face of the program and that is a big part of being a head coach at a Power 5 school. You are a marketing guy as much as you are a head coach. And let's be honest, if any other team at or above Minnesota's level would have had that same schedule, they would have won at least 10 games.

 

[lmh839]

Dude, in his first season we improved our win total by 4 we nearly beat Penn State @ Penn State (you know they did win the Big Ten), lost to Nebraska @ Nebraska by 7, Iowa by 7 and were leading at half against Wisconsin. During the season we were breaking in a new Offensive Coordinator and Line coach and had key suspensions in our secondary. How is this considered the ceiling? Am I thrilled we lost the games we did, no? But it is tough to argue that we were not trending up after last season with Claeys.

The truth is that Penn State loss killed any chance of momentum for the football program heading into the Iowa game. The Gophers were 3-0 heading into Big Ten play and should have won at Penn State, however, they lost in OT killing any momentum. If you win at Penn State and come into the Iowa game at 4-0, that stadium is filled with many more people. That was a very disappointing crowd given it was the biggest home game of the year and played in early October with good weather. Claeys never had that "wow factor" as the face of the program and that is a big part of being a head coach at a Power 5 school. You are a marketing guy as much as you are a head coach. And let's be honest, if any other team at or above Minnesota's level would have had that same schedule, they would have won at least 10 games.

 

[JTsolo612]

I hate when people bring up "think of your sisters, daughters and mothers" when referring to the alleged victim. None of those in my family would have acted that way or put themselves in that position to begin with! And I truly do not believe that what happened was right, of course, nor do I believe these 10 kids are rapists. Promiscuous and immoral sure... but wasn't the alleged victim too? Not blaming the victim at all, it should have stopped the second she said so. But for future reference avoid those situations to begin with! I just know this is Gona be taken the wrong way by someone... [emoji849]Im not advocating rape here nor "blaming the victim for being a hoe" as does sometimes happens to justify rape.. not saying that at all so save it you hippies...

 

[JTsolo612]

Claeys is not a scapegoat. He flat out lied to his players about him not having anything to do with the suspensions, then lied to the public about it as well. We finally have a president and AD who bypassed the search committee and went out and got their first choice for head coach while paying huge amounts of money that this school has never been willing to pay before. Kaler and Coyle are both the kinds of administrators people on this board have been begging to come here for years, administrators who care about winning in football and basketball and are willing to pay like the Michigans and Ohio States of the world. Now that we have them and this dream is becoming reality, we're complaining because Claeys got his damn feelings hurt? We hired Jerry Kill 6 years ago, not Tracey Claeys. Coyle didn't fire Claeys, you don't fire an interim coach (which is really what Claeys was). Coyle simply decided not to hire Claeys for this job, which was the right decision as Claeys has no business being a head coach in the Big Ten.

We need Kaler and especially Coyle to stick around a long time.

Posted by Kaler and especially Coyle (LOL)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Iceland12]

Dude, in his first season we improved our win total by 4 we nearly beat Penn State @ Penn State (you know they did win the Big Ten), lost to Nebraska @ Nebraska by 7, Iowa by 7 and were leading at half against Wisconsin. During the season we were breaking in a new Offensive Coordinator and Line coach and had key suspensions in our secondary. How is this considered the ceiling? Am I thrilled we lost the games we did, no? But it is tough to argue that we were not trending up after last season with Claeys.

You're right, but probably wasting your time. "Block M" is the symbol for the University of Michigan.

https://www.google.com/search?q=blo...W9xL_RAhUH4IMKHRW6CPoQsAQIGw&biw=1440&bih=736

 

[Lordshawesome]

Why does he get to talk about Gopher football. He HAD his chance to care about Gopher football, but chose to go to Pitt. So he should keep his opinions about the hometown school he turned his back on, to himself.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[Calm Down]

The truth is that Penn State loss killed any chance of momentum for the football program heading into the Iowa game. The Gophers were 3-0 heading into Big Ten play and should have won at Penn State, however, they lost in OT killing any momentum. If you win at Penn State and come into the Iowa game at 4-0, that stadium is filled with many more people. That was a very disappointing crowd given it was the biggest home game of the year and played in early October with good weather. Claeys never had that "wow factor" as the face of the program and that is a big part of being a head coach at a Power 5 school. You are a marketing guy as much as you are a head coach. And let's be honest, if any other team at or above Minnesota's level would have had that same schedule, they would have won at least 10 games.

Couldn't disagree with you more on the Marketing Guy. You need a coach that can win football games, winning solves your marketing problems. As an example, if we would have beaten Penn State the Bank would have been rocking for the Iowa game. Tell me if you win, where is the need for a marketing guy? Also, does being a great Marketer matter if you lose more games than you win.

 

[STPGopher]

Why does he get to talk about Gopher football. He HAD his chance to care about Gopher football, but chose to go to Pitt. So he should keep his opinions about the hometown school he turned his back on, to himself.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

Dad, not son. Larry Fitzgerald Jr. has actually had football camps at Minnesota. It is my humble opinion that Junior wanted to play at Minnesota at some point. I think dad(the author) was a big reason the son didn't go to the U of M. IIRC Senior was not happy with how Clem Haskins was treated.

 

[STPGopher]

I hate when people bring up "think of your sisters, daughters and mothers" when referring to the alleged victim. None of those in my family would have acted that way or put themselves in that position to begin with! And I truly do not believe that what happened was right, of course, nor do I believe these 10 kids are rapists. Promiscuous and immoral sure... but wasn't the alleged victim too? Not blaming the victim at all, it should have stopped the second she said so. But for future reference avoid those situations to begin with! I just know this is Gona be taken the wrong way by someone... [emoji849]Im not advocating rape here nor "blaming the victim for being a hoe" as does sometimes happens to justify rape.. not saying that at all so save it you hippies...

Oh so now you're going all Steven A. Smith on the situation...

 

[lmh839]

Couldn't disagree with you more on the Marketing Guy. You need a coach that can win football games, winning solves your marketing problems. As an example, if we would have beaten Penn State the Bank would have been rocking for the Iowa game. Tell me if you win, where is the need for a marketing guy? Also, does being a great Marketer matter if you lose more games than you win.

I understand your point, but to win football games, you need to get good players. And to get good players, you need to sell and market your program and vision. Is recruiting not marketing your program?? You need to sell your program to potential recruits to buy in as well as potential donors and high school coaches.

To be clear, I said you are a marketing guy as much as you are a head coach when it comes to being a college head football coach.