Wednesday June 17, 2009

Another Family Member Gone

Another Family Member Gone
I received this e-mail late last night. I withheld his name for privacy issues.

Mickey,

Go Tigers,
Name Edited Out

We lost another member of the family yesterday and this one really hurts. Trevor Adair will always be a Tiger but he won’t be an active member of the family anymore.

I am well aware that some readers of this blog are not soccer fans but this is not about soccer. This is about the unfortunate way the athletic department handled a good man...A Clemson Man.

It is very difficult to write this blog today because of my love for Trevor and his family. Yesterday was a sad day for Clemson. However, it is just another in a long line of sad days recently.

When I worked as a student-assistant in the sports information office in the late 80s and early 90s Clemson was a family. The coaches were a fraternity that supported each other. The athletic director actually went to almost every home sporting event. He knew all of the wives names. He knew all of the athletes and all of the assistant coaches. We had family picnics in Jervey Meadows. We loved each other. The family was passionate about the athletic department.

Those days are gone.

In the early days of Bill Wilhelm’s reign at Clemson he went after a fan in the stands at Furman because he made a foul comment to Sara Jane, Wilhelm’s lovely wife. He didn’t get fired because he was part of the family and the athletic department stood by him. To show you how much things have changed, the legendary coach was told before this year’s baseball regional that he was not going to be given complimentary tickets to the home regional. Some other athletic administrators found out about it and rectified the situation. However, in the old days do you think the original insult would have occurred?

We don’t take care of our former great athletes either. Ring of Honor legend Fred Cone recently had his parking demoted. Do you think these things would have happened when we really were a family?

“Athletic department morale is the lowest I have ever seen it,” one athletic department employee told me recently. That employee is one of many who have told me the same thing. “It wasn’t this bad during the football probation because we had a passionate leader that made us believe we were going to emerge stronger if we stayed together. That doesn’t happen today.”

Isolated incidents add up to tell the big picture of how the family has changed. I am not close enough to Jack Leggett to ask him about an embarrassing situation that happened a couple of weeks ago when the athletic director did not know Jack’s wife‘s (Karen) name when speaking at a baseball regional function. That would have never happened in the old days. We used to be a family.

In the old days the athletic director would have said something along the lines of…”We are a family here and we will stand behind Trevor. He is one of ours. We will work through this and we will help with his family situation in any way we can.”

Instead, we forced Trevor’s resignation.

We should not be surprised I guess but it still hurts to watch the family crumble away. Jim Davis was told he was not going to be fired by the athletic director and less than a week later he was fired. Davis was the winningest basketball coach in Clemson history. He had two losing seasons in his last three. His last season he played mostly freshmen and that team got better as the year went on. Every player you stayed four years graduated. Davis was one of the most popular coaches in the Clemson community. All of that was ignored and he was fired. How has that moved worked out?

Bob Pollack went to The Citadel and learned about honor there. He coached over 20 years without the first accusation of wrong doing. He was told he could take money from entry fees by an athletic department employee. That employee changed her story and turned on Pollack. The family turned its back on an honorable man and he was forced to retire.

Yesterday leaves Jack Leggett and Larry Penley as the last two standing in the old guard. When we will turn our backs on the last two family members?

This hurts so much because I know what kind of guy Trevor Adair is. None of us were there that Friday night so before you judge, consider what I know. I know he loves his wife and his kids. I met Trevor about 12 years ago and know of his integrity. I know his wife, Jody, tells me what happened that night and I do not know a mother that would stand behind her husband if he was wrongfully beating her children. I know his oldest daughter and I know what she has told me about the incident. She says she is proud of her father and he has never been out of line as a father. “Do you think we would still be here tonight if we ever thought he was going to beat us?” Courtney asked. She also asked if she could come on my radio show to help clear her father’s name.

I know what Jody and Courtney will testify in court and I could not have fired Trevor after what they told me.

I know Trevor Adair is a passionate man. He is passionate about his family. He is passionate about his players and his coaches. He is passionate about his Clemson family. But I also know that somewhere deep inside he is a little relieved today because he does not have to work in the crumbling conditions of the athletic department morale anymore.

One of the reasons he was told he was forced to resign was the idea that some of his former players thought he had lost his team. If that is the criteria then we need to be looking for a new athletic director because he has lost many of his employees. Sure he has a few insulators that will get mad about this article but the majority of people that work there and love Clemson know this is the case and the truth hurts.

We are not winning championships and we are not a family anymore.

So again today some athletic department employees will be called in and be accused of leaking information. But these are just symptoms. We need a cure. We need honesty. We need leaders who will lead in tough times. We need a Clemson man to lead us. We need someone who is passionate about Clemson.

It is so difficult to sit here watch people that are passionate about Clemson be forced out by some whose actions indicate they aren’t.

The Brad Hughes All-State Insurance Agency

Prayer List
We have started a prayer list on the blog. Here are the guidelines:
*If you are offended by prayer or prayer lists then I apologize in advance. The blog is free and the prayer list will be on the bottom of the page so you don’t have to read it.
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Those who need our prayers include:
Finn Brookover, Mrs. Kathleen Bowers, Larry in Naples, FL, RTG-Pawsitive Tiger, Mary-Louise Pawlowski (John's daughter), Jo Ann Bachman, Frank Taylor, Kenneth Bryant, Pruitt Martin, Got igers and his family, David Rowland, Leonard Gillespie and his family, Jim S, Christine Hepfer, Daniel Rosborough, Amy Murphey, Jack Huffman, Nancy Winkler, Dr. Nancy Strom Morgan, John Reeve, Eileen Woodrum, Ethel Southard, Vinnie Brock, Jean-Pierre Bailey, Kaitlyn L, William Perry, Delores Weaver, Eric Boessneck, John Bowers, Jimmy Ness.