RebKell's Junkie Boards

[ArtBest23]

As I said I don't know enough about him to draw any conclusions (Although I do note that all of the cited harrasment complaints seem to be in the context of people getting fired, a not uncommon response by lawyers. I'd like to see complaints by some people wihout other axes to grind.)

But I don't see eliminating "Lady Vols" as necessarily an assault on women's sports. I understand such changes can upset some longtime fans, but frankly those changes are made places for the opposite reason, to make a statement that they treat and respect all of their athletes the same. I don't know what Hart's motives might be. But it's easy for people who for other reasons don't like him to latch onto that as some sign that he's anti-women when that might have nothing to do with it.

[linkster]

[bekcat1]

[ClayK]

So basically, Hart was accused by one coach at FSU of some kind of sexual harassment, or bias against women's sports. A negative, certainly.

He worked at Alabama, which had a below-par facility before he arrived and wasn't changed while he was there.

Unless I'm mistaken, he was given the job of merging the men's and women's athletic departments (it was not his decision), and did so. Not surprisingly, some employees on the women's side were upset with the change, and he didn't make any friends while doing it.

He's talked about, or actually gotten rid of, "Lady Vols," which I happen to be in favor of. I think Lady anything is demeaning, and I refuse to let announcers call my high school teams by that diminutive. We are the Dons or Cougars or Phoenix and we represent the school in the same way every other athletic team does. If the football team is the Gentlemen Cougars, then I have no issues, but obviously that doesn't happen.

Now, the Lady Vols is obviously a different case, having sprung out of a more gender-biased past, and then elevated to an identity. Still, my feeling is it's time to move on from that kind of implicit sexism and treat athletes as athletes, regardless of gender. I can understand how that would upset people, but that doesn't seem like destroying women's sports.

Perhaps there's more evidence that Hart's goal is to downgrade women's sports to simply background noise, but so far, what's been presented doesn't seem to be that strong a case. The underlying issue seems to be the combining of the two athletic departments, plus the decline of Pat Summitt's program from the best in the country to one of the best. And apparently, he's not considered a very nice guy.

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Oṃ Tāre Tuttāre Ture Svāhā

[ArtBest23]

[summertime blues]

[NoDakSt]

I think its too early to really evaluate Warlick's progress. I like the criteria that Glenn sets up for analyzing Warlick's tenure as head coach but the problem I have is because of Warlick's long association with the program, I don't know to what degree she had an impact on some of these areas while still an assistant coach as to what degree she had an impact as a head coach. For example, Tennessee backcourt players don't seem to develop the skills to dominate at the next level. To what degree was Warlick responsible for this development as an assistant coach. Was she in a position to further develop these skills. And now that she has full reign of the program, can she change that? I need more time to observe the product currently that is put on the floor.

[ArtBest23]