After having had a few days to consider the situation, read some posts and non-list articles on the subject, and talk with some people who are also concerned, I'll finally weigh in with some thoughts. In a way, this is a difficult situation for me. Although I do not consider myself to be a reporter per se, it has bothered me that because I know and like many of the people at Maine, it has been hard for me to express an unbiased opinion, and for that I feel I am letting some people down. I probably wouldn't make a very good journalist. What I will try to do here after having had time to think, is to express just such an unbiased opinion and qualify it by saying that nothing personal is intended towards anyone at Maine, following Maine, or in any way connected with the situation. I welcome comments and rebuttals, but first, please understand where I am coming from. At 2:58 AM 12/25/95, MR ADAM C WODON wrote: >I agree completely that these violations are no small >potatoes. With all due respect, this is what I meant in my >prior post about the complete denial many Maine people >continue to live in. I don't think that most Maine people feel this way. I do believe that some are still trying to deny what has happened to a various extent - quotes I have read from some people in newspaper articles make it clear that they still believe no wrong was done, while others accept that some wrong took place but are denying the extent to which it occurred. > You can point to an incident here or there at another >school -- you can even rationalize this or that at Maine -- >but for cryin' out loud, when things happen over and over >and over and over again -- something's wrong. And then the >idea of Walsh taking that money while on suspension -- c'mon >-- people have been fired for a lot less than that. This expresses the concern that I have. I think there are a few different types of violations here. Some occurred because of the lack of accountability that the hockey program had and were not a result of an intent to break rules by the people in charge of the program. These are a concern, but they seem to be in the process of being remedied by the actions the university has taken towards improving its compliance. The violations that concern me and perhaps many people the most are the ones where there seemed to have been a pattern of rule-breaking with the knowledge and apparent consent of the program itself, including Shawn Walsh. Again, this is not easy for me because Heather and I like Shawn Walsh and have talked with him several times, and we like what he has done with the program at Maine overall and for college hockey in general. But I am trying to take an unbiased view and say what I think needs to be said. It is difficult not to agree with what Adam says about people having been fired for less than what Maine says Walsh was guilty of. It is never easy to fire someone who has done as much for Maine as Walsh has done and who is as good a coach as he is. But Maine is in a heap of trouble, and the only way for them to fully demonstrate that they are trying to start over may be for them to disassociate themselves from him, particularly when he was found by Maine to have been at the root of some of the more serious violations. If it had been shown that he was unaware of the violations that occurred and that they were primarily because of the lack of control that the school itself had over the program, then a strong argument could be made for keeping him on and simply fixing the source of the problem. But taken together, the violations that do seem to be his fault can be seen to reflect a pattern of intending to break rules. This is something the NCAA takes very seriously. I am reminded of the situation where Lowell and then coach Bill Riley were investigated by the NCAA several years ago, and the result was a year of probation for Lowell and the NCAA's forbidding of Riley to be involved with college hockey for five years. The NCAA came down upon Riley the hardest because he was shown to be someone who knew the rules very well (some coaches do not), and yet he chose to break some of them, several times. I think a parallel can be drawn here, because Walsh also knows the rules very well and apparently chose to break some of them. The situation where he, his attorney, and assistant coach were shown to have contacted investigation witnesses after they had been directed not to, seems to indicate an intent to somehow subvert the process of the investigation. I do not know that this was the case. But, it is quite possible that the NCAA will believe that subversion was the intent, and if so, they may well come down hard. > And I've never figured out how Dunham came back from the >Olympics, then played the remainder of that collegiate >season. I've never seen that before or since. This would have been during the 1991-92 season. Dunham joined the Olympic Team in late January, if I remember correctly (just before the Games), and he was away from Maine for about a month. I seem to recall that at the time, it was said that Dunham's coursework was being sent to him and he was fulfilling it, thus remaining eligible to play when he returned. It is an extraordinary and unusual situation. However, I have also heard of cases where a regular student suffered some type of injury and was stuck in a hospital for several weeks, but he/she was still able to do coursework that was brought to the hospital and keep up in classes. It is unusual but not impossible. >Nevertheless, I stand by the notion that Maine got what it >deserved and Walsh got off easy. Having had a bit of a chance to sense some of the fallout both on and off the list, I believe that one of the concerns the university should have is that its punishments are seen by a number of people, including supporters of the program and Walsh, to have not gone far enough. Maine President Frederick Hutchinson drew attention to the fact that they were trying to take actions to deal with the problems, but if the perception is that they did not take appropriate actions, then their attempt at self-policing may fall by the wayside. It may be that the school either cannot fire Walsh, as Deron Treadwell suggested, or they do not wish to take such a drastic step and would prefer that if it has to happen, it should be forced by the NCAA. But if the NCAA hands down much more severe sanctions, possibly including a judgment against Walsh in line with that against Bill Riley, then the people who say that Maine did not take appropriate action will appear justified in their viewpoint. Finally, as I have said, the release of the report and publication of the violations bother me personally because as I have said, I like Shawn Walsh. I believe many people here feel the same way. It is difficult for me to reconcile what I know of him with what appears to be a pattern of intended violations that he was involved in. I wish I had an answer, but right now both Heather and I feel very confused as I am sure many people do. I hope that someday we'll learn more and perhaps have that feeling of confusion resolved. I also hope that I've succeeded in my attempt to present an unbiased opinion given the difficulty of the situation and the personal feelings that it has evoked in me. It took me over four days to be able to express these thoughts on the list. I look forward to the day when this is all finally over and the people involved can go about their business normally again. --- --- Mike Machnik [log in to unmask] *HMM* 11/13/93 >> Co-owner of the College Hockey Lists at University of Maine System << ***** Unofficial Merrimack Hockey home page located at: ***** ***** http://www.tiac.net/users/machnik/MChockey/MChockey.html ***** HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.