UR suspends head baseball coach and assistant
- Thread starter EPJr
- Start date
Troubling. Will be interesting to hear what this is all about. Given the wording and when it apparently took place, a few types of things come to mind. I hope none of them are in play here, though.
was anyone at the vcu games, was Mac coaching? wonder if this will go thru the tourney and be the end of his era or is this a slap on the wrist for having escorts at the baseball party or what?
probably means the end of McQueen's time here. And I have no clue what drew the suspension. Was thinking it could be the end even without that as we couldn't find way to lock up A10 bid on our own. McQueen is well liked & regarded going back to his asst days and could say team has shown incremental improvement during his tenure he's still overall about .500 (just under) in 6 years. No NCAAs and reasonable to expect 1 in our league. UR is not w/o its challenges with cost of school & ship allocation etc. but still offer a lot and overall there is good institiutional support for athletics here. not gonna cut it when we have some solid baseball history here too. then you add in new AD, after basketball & football this is probably 3rd most high profile sport, and he's not going to be making new hire in those other two sports unless the coaches leave, here he has chance to try to make a mark with a hire. then you add in whatever this suspension is about. maybe the team will really try to rally for him in his absence. all too bad but not looking good.
Out of the ashes of turmoil, champions arise. Let's see if these guys can come together and make a run. My son's senior season in soccer, they were seeded 7th out of 8 with a losing record. Won the SoCon tournament, went to the NCAAs, knocked two ranked teams off, including one in the top 10. They missed going to the elite 8, by losing in a shoot out and wining last 6 games still had a losing season. This is pretty good UR baseball team who can beat anyone they play, they just need to play for themselves. Nothing is impossible.
This post was edited on 5/19 1:35 PM by CarolinaSpider
This post was edited on 5/19 1:35 PM by CarolinaSpider
Carolina - like that way of thinking. Saw one game in person this year and that was against a very good UVA team. Richmond has talent and some times when difficulties arise that can be a motivator for the team to excel. Also is a way for the team to show support for the suspended coaches.
have heard nothing, know nothing, just throwing out something humorous since i do not. remember though, what was going on with the ladies LAX program and hope not the same thing here.
some suspension details from O'Connor...
http://ursports.blogs.timesdispatch.com/2013/05/19/sources-say-confrontation-with-player-caused-suspension-of-ur-baseball-coach/
http://ursports.blogs.timesdispatch.com/2013/05/19/sources-say-confrontation-with-player-caused-suspension-of-ur-baseball-coach/
kind of sounds like the suspended assistant might have been out with the guys but just speculation on my part. sounds like it might have become physical and that is too bad. guys on the road, do their things, has always been that way and probably will never change.
Yea, college life and drinking continue to temp the college student athlete. The idea is to be discreet, out of public view and do not overdo it. The other problem is there is no off season for college athlete so being a normal college student is tough. I am sure guidelines were given and the line was crossed.
Sounds like Deja Vu Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson in the Yankee dugout a few decades ago.Lots of stuff to do in NYC especially with a rainout....too bad that confrontation didn't occur privately.Maybe cooler heads would have prevailed instead of an altercation.
happened on a road trip at Fordham, I believe the coaches flipped out on a player at dinner with parents present
had a couple of teachers in high school who played baseball with my bro at UR and one of them told be a story about a trip to play gw up in dc and that televisions from the hotel ended up out the window and on the sidewalk down stairs etc. not sure what happened with that but know my bro was never kicked out of school or off the team and not sure if he was one who even did that but the guy did tell me they got read the riot act, among other things. the road can be a dangerous place and even the pro/older, athletes do stupid things. it is when the adults do the stupid things that really hurts.
IMHO, tt is ashame that one person's behavior cost the whole team its season. There was also a better way to handle it than in front of a group of people.
I'm failing to see how this incident "cost the whole team" for the entire season, considering that it took place last week.
I don't know any details aside from what I've read, but it seems as though McQueen should have handled it differently. Agree, this may be the final act in his career as UR's baseball coach. For whatever reason, we haven't gotten the results we thought we would under his supervision.
Somewhat off the topic of the suspension but there is quite an irony in the fact that VCU swept us in three games which would lead one to think VCU has the better team but we qualified for the A-10 Tournament and VCU did not. This also begs the question if this incident was affecting our play on the field.
First, in the last week, the team lost 4 of the last 5. It also lost its head coach and its assistant coach. The team is limping into the post season. It was the worst possible time to remove a coach. All involved were affected by this action. To your point, the team has been steadily improving since we lost our last coach. A 30 win season is an outstanding accomplishment in baseball. The team could have achieved 35 wins, if this incident had not happened. Gill overreacted and has materially damaged the team. It will be years before UR baseball recovers, if he does something stupid like firing the coach.
while on the road, a coach/teacher (my wife as a teacher sometimes chaperoned students on school trips) is the person responsible and held accountable if something happens. if a young man or woman is injured, arrested, killed, the parents, everyone looks at the coach for not protecting their kid. that is why the school makes demands of behavior and the coach probably also adds some rules when they travel. we do not know all the facts here but it appears that something boiled over and it was in the dugout not back at the hotel in private and that is too bad. when you have competitive guys involved, no matter the age, things can escalate very quickly and get out of hand and seems it did here. am sure the school also has rules and guidelines for their employees and these should be enforced as well. this is terrible timing but most likely what had to be done, again, not knowing all of what took place, etc. we, on here, should not be finger pointing when we really do not know what happened. certainly we are all disappointed but that is different than saying this guy did the wrong thing when he may have been doing the right thing. when it all comes out, then we can do all of that and we probably will.
When it boils over like that in the dugout there is usually two reasons: first, the player is a hot head and is mad cause he is being made an example and is mad he was caught, or second, he is upset cause there are other players involved and they are not disciplined for the incident or is punished at a lesser level. The second, case scenario I saw with my son's college team where the better players had less punishment cause they needed them on the field but were just as guilty if not more so. But their incidents were off campus but involved players from the basketball team who crashed their party.
Carolina, your points make sense. Why not discipline an employee for making a mistake instead of firing him? Gill overreacted and wrecked the team. Now, the next coach will have to start over. It took 17 years for the last UR coach, Ron Atkins, to build the baseball program into a top 10 team with 50 wins.
This post was edited on 5/21 11:40 AM by Stonewall D
This post was edited on 5/21 11:40 AM by Stonewall D
Carolina - I think your first example is pretty close.
Stonewall - what if the employee clearly crossed the line? If there was something physical that occurred then I think Gill had his hand played for him. Post Rutgers basketball I think that is a particularly sensitive issue (obviously not to that degree though). I would also take issue with your "wrecked the team" statement. We finished 7th in the A-10.....we're nothing special and haven't been in a while. I believe we will be headed in a new direction and hopefully we can make the commitment to return to being a consistently competitive program.
Stonewall - what if the employee clearly crossed the line? If there was something physical that occurred then I think Gill had his hand played for him. Post Rutgers basketball I think that is a particularly sensitive issue (obviously not to that degree though). I would also take issue with your "wrecked the team" statement. We finished 7th in the A-10.....we're nothing special and haven't been in a while. I believe we will be headed in a new direction and hopefully we can make the commitment to return to being a consistently competitive program.
The core of this problem is the senior who while his team is fighting for a playoff berth goes out drinking on the road and knows that he is violating a team rule. He is disciplined and then goes off on the head coach because of all this. I dont know this young man but it seems to me that he is all about him. I am not condoning what the coaches did but this young man is where the problem started. I also would like to know who went to Gill with the situation a week after it happened. Maybe the coach and the team had handled the problem internally? Just wondering.
If UR could have won 4 of its last five, it could conceivably been tied for first. I suggest that the turmoil and the loss of 2 coaches, have cost the team immeasurably. It hurt the team at exactly the wrong time of the season and it hurt the teams chances for post season play.
Per the article above, MacQueen and the assistant "were indefinitely suspended following a violation of the athletic department's code of conduct." That sounds like a firing to me.
Automatic suspension for the coach is if there was physical contact even if restraint or defending one self. Sounds to me that the Asst Coach was suspended cause he either witnessed the drinking or knew about it and did not report. In either case it is sort of like Earl Weaver or Billy Martin losing their cool in a dugout. If it was physical contact I hope for the coach's sake, he did not initiate it cause if so, he is 100% gone.
not attempting to open up a can of worms but the call to our athletic director could have been from a player or parent or any number of others who heard about it. there are helicopter parents out there and if there is a perception that someone did my son wrong, he will pay for it, no matter who's fault it is and it could not be my son who was wrong.
hated to even go there because we have had such great parents participating on here, like yourself but we have also had a couple of less than stable ones as well. guess at some point all of us will pretty much know the complete story and we can make judgements at that time.
SF- there is a difference between "suspended pending further review" and "indefinitely suspended."
Similar threads
