Dave Josselyn writes:
>> Q: What about Maine's claims that you were in a conflict of interest?
>> A: Maine also said that it was one school ramrodding it through. [He then
>> talked about how he was appointed interim commissioner, mentioned that Hockey
>> East was a one-sport league and they didn't know if they needed a full-time
>> commissioner] I would have supported the action if I was only the AD of
>> Merrimack College.   [ said by Bob DeGregorio - mike ]
>
>I have to admit I'm shocked that DeGregorio said that, given I have heard
>and seen at Merrimack how much pressure he and his staff is under
>(especially Jim Seavey, the SID) as it appears the HE league office has
>migrated a few hundred miles south to Merrimack. While Haskell may have
>been perfectly able to be a "part-time" commissioner, Merrimack is a
>school that is downsizing across the board, and I know there is a lot of
>extra work attached to his temporary position as Commish and Jim's as
>acting assistant commish (so to speak- I haven't seen official notice of
>that.)
 
BTW, Jim is not the acting asst. commish - he has only been serving as
a sort of spokesman for the conference.  And Dave is right about the
cutbacks at Merrimack and the additional work this season that has
been foisted upon people who are already understaffed.  In particular,
Jim is a guy notorious for working 16 hour days during the winter
sports season.  And that's 7 days a week.  I think he and Bob have done
an admirable job throughout the whole thing.
 
I was not surprised to read the above quote from Bob.  It only
supports what HE has been saying all along, that Bob's vote was cast
as athletic director at Merrimack and that he had only one of the 8
votes - he had no additional power even as acting commissioner.  Jim
pointed this out in response to a question of mine about the conflict
of interest that Maine had raised.  According to Jim, the function that
the commish serves in HE is one of "enforcer" - after the ADs make a
decision, the commish's job is to enforce it.  Jim was on with me
between periods of the Merrimack-Lowell game last Friday, and he stressed
this fact...had the ADs voted not to suspend Maine from the tourney, it
would have been Bob's job to enforce that decision as well.  Normally,
this doesn't seem to involve much other than calling up the other party
and telling them what the decision was (thus the suggestion that a
full-time commish may not be needed, which I have also heard), but this
case was very unusual.
 
Jim did not say this directly, but I am drawing from that explanation
that this is why the legal action on behalf of HE was taken.  Bob's
job was to enforce the decision as best as he could, and part of that
meant attempting to overturn the injunction.  In fact, I believe that
Bob spoke with each of the other ADs before deciding to press ahead
with the court action.  Jim said that Bob and the league believed that
the court action taken by Maine was something Maine was completely
entitled to do and that there was nothing wrong with that.
 
Finally, nothing definite was said, but Jim indicated that the league
was seriously considering pursuing the legal action to its natural
conclusion to obtain a final answer on the matter.  But I don't know
what has occurred in this regard since the weekend, if anything.
---                                                                 ---
Mike Machnik                                          [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                  *HMM* 11/13/93