Acceding to Fan Outrage, U. of Tennessee Draws More Critics

Updated (11/28/2017, 9:32 a.m.) with additional comment on the situation.

The University of Tennessee at Knoxville’s decision this week to scrap the hiring of Greg Schiano as its next head football coach appears to mark a rare capitulation to public outrage and illustrates the long tail of a sexual-abuse scandal that dates back six years.

When news broke over the weekend that Tennessee was poised to name Mr. Schiano, a defensive coordinator at Ohio State University, as the Vols’ head coach, fans and some state lawmakers were furious. They seized on a disputed claim that Mr. Schiano had failed to report Jerry Sandusky, then an assistant football coach at Pennsylvania State University, for sexually abusing a boy in the early 1990s, during Mr. Schiano’s years as a coach there.

Fans took to the streets in protest, painting a rock on the Knoxville campus with the words, “Schiano covered up child rape at Penn State.”

The unfolding drama at Tennessee is a potent example of a public veto of an administrative decision, and no one has come out looking good. Sports commentators have accused the university’s fans of using a dubious pretext to halt the hiring of a coach whom they simply didn’t think could win. At the same time, Tennessee’s leaders have been criticized for surrendering to mob rule at a time when universities are under scrutiny for acceding too readily to the demands of students and alumni.

John Currie, the university’s athletics director, issued a statement on Monday that did little to elucidate the rationale for Tennessee’s decision not to hire Mr. Schiano.

“We carefully interviewed and vetted him, as we do candidates for all positions,” Mr. Currie said. “He received the highest recommendations for character, family values, and commitment to academic achievement and student-athlete welfare from his current and former athletics directors, players, coaching colleagues, and experienced media figures.”

Mr. Schiano has denied the allegation that he knew of Mr. Sandusky’s crimes. The claim arose from a deposition by Michael J. McQueary, a onetime football graduate assistant, about Mr. Sandusky, who is serving a minimum 30-year sentence.

Mr. McQueary, who has testified that he saw Mr. Sandusky molesting a boy in a shower, said in the deposition that Tom Bradley, another assistant coach, had told him that Mr. Schiano had witnessed something similar. Recalling the exchange, Mr. McQueary said, “I can’t remember if it was one night or one morning, but that Greg had come into his office white as a ghost and said he just saw Jerry doing something to a boy in the shower. And that’s it. That’s all he ever told me.”

Penn State Scandal

This selection of articles from The Chronicle’s archives looks back on the Jerry Sandusky scandal and its fallout at Pennsylvania State University.

• With Last-Minute Ruling, Graham Spanier Evades Jumpsuit and ‘Hard Cell’
• Seeking Closure in Verdict, Penn State Finds More Discord
• Spanier’s Conviction Highlights Lessons of Sandusky Scandal

In its vetting process, Mr. Currie said, Tennessee reviewed an independent investigation of the Sandusky scandal performed by Louis J. Freeh, a former FBI director. Mr. Schiano was not among more than 400 people interviewed in the investigation, Mr. Currie noted, nor was he ever deposed or asked to testify in related civil or criminal proceedings.

So why back away? Mr. Currie did not answer that question in his statement, and Tennessee officials gave no direct answer to The Chronicle.

In a written statement, the Knoxville campus’s chancellor, Beverly Davenport, said: “I deeply regret the events of yesterday for everyone involved.”

She did not elaborate on the source of her regret, but said, “The university remains steadfast in its commitment to excellence, and I look forward to John Currie continuing the search to bring the next head football coach to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.”

Mr. Schiano did not respond to an email on Monday.

Asked if the university was satisfied that Mr. Schiano had done nothing wrong, Ohio State officials referred The Chronicle to public comments that Urban Meyer, the Buckeyes’ head football coach, made on Monday.

“I stand by my coach,” Mr. Meyer said.

‘It’s a Fishbowl’

Roger H. Hull, a higher-education consultant and former president of Beloit College, in Wisconsin, and Union College, in New York, said that leadership is truly tested in situations of this sort — when administrative decisions meet with a public backlash. While unfamiliar with the details of the Tennessee case, Mr. Hull described broader principles that the university’s reversal brought into sharp relief.

“Leadership is having the courage of your convictions,” said Mr. Hull, who is a founder and president of Avon Associates, a recently established nonprofit firm that advises college leaders. “To me the principle of leadership is being a prudent risk taker. If you decided to do something and you’re morally convinced it’s the right thing to do, then you do it; you don’t capitulate.”

The university’s reversal breaks with plenty of precedent in higher education, where public pressure on college administrators and trustees to reverse a hiring decision seldom makes a difference, even when there is reasonable cause for concern.

At Rutgers University, where Mr. Schiano was previously head football coach, there was tremendous opposition to the hiring of Julie Hermann as athletics director. Ms. Hermann, who took the helm in 2013 at a time of significant turmoil in Rutgers athletics, was dogged by allegations that she had been tyrannical and cruel in her previous role as a women’s volleyball coach at Tennessee.

Robert L. Barchi, the university’s president, remained unwavering in his support for Ms. Hermann, even as troubling details came to light. (Ms. Hermann was fired, in 2015, after a series of unrelated problems in athletics both on and off the field.)

John J. Farmer Jr., who was Rutgers’s senior vice president and general counsel when Ms. Hermann was hired, said in an email to The Chronicle that Tennessee leaders had undermined the university’s credibility by caving in to critics.

“By acceding to fan and social-media pressure — based on what appears to be a factitious smear of Greg Schiano’s character and reputation — and reneging on its negotiation with Schiano, the university has lost control of its athletics program and raised questions about the process it undertook to recruit a new coach,” wrote Mr. Farmer, a former New Jersey attorney general who now serves as special counsel to the president at Rutgers. “This is the age of the pitchfork emoji, of the social-media hothouse stampede. It stops only when a university has confidence in its process and its judgment and says ‘enough.’”

In recent years, vociferous opposition to presidential hires at both Florida State University and the University of Iowa did nothing to change the outcome. In 2014, Florida State trustees overwhelmingly voted to appoint John E. Thrasher, a former state senator, as president, despite charges of political favoritism and pleas for a leader with more-traditional academic credentials.

A year later, Iowa’s board similarly backed J. Bruce Harreld, a business executive, ignoring widespread opposition from faculty members.

At colleges with big-time sports programs, nothing — including a presidential appointment — invites broad-based public scrutiny and outrage like the hiring of a high-profile head coach. That much was evident this week in Tennessee.

It is “perfectly acceptable” to reverse course if truly new information comes to light, Mr. Hull said. Otherwise, he continued, leaders must be able to endure the sometimes-intense scrutiny and criticism of their decisions.

“It’s a fishbowl,” Mr. Hull said. “But whether you’re a football coach or a college president, you’ve got to have the ability to do what you think is right and then stick to your guns. I don’t think it’s stubbornness. You make the decision based on the information you have.”

Jack Stripling covers college leadership, particularly presidents and governing boards. Follow him on Twitter @jackstripling, or email him at jack.stripling@chronicle.com.