Beth Sullivan making headlines at UT

The article was about Morgan Harvey, that's why. I don't even know who the other athletes affected were.

The University of Tennessee recruited athletes, signed them to full scholarships for track, and then cut them without any cause and denied them access to the track facilities. In what possible world is that acceptable? This is not a case of athletes performing poorly during the season or not attending practice and being denied scholarships for the following year. (It is arguable that scholarships should be four years guaranteed, but that's another story).

It is obvious that there are 2-3 trolls or crackpots posting on here that clearly have no idea anything about the real world let alone college athletics. You keep posting the same stupid things. I feel like I am in some crazy twilight zone reading this insanity.

If you think real recruits (not that fake crap that was posted a little while back) will use your ridiculous ranting to decide on a school then you are more crazy.

I have been around college athletics for a long time. You can complain all you want about things being unfair but then there is nothing said about the guy that recruited your daughter - Jj Clark. Was he justly terminated? I would say probably because the Volunteer performances have declined in a big way recently.

JJ recruited your daughter. One of the reasons he likely no longer is employed at UT may be his ability to evaluate talent and distribute scholarship.

Like it or not, BAS came in to clean up a huge mess. Your daughter does not fit in the plan. You would NEVER see a school that is in the running or doing the right things to be in the running for an NCAA title give Morgan Harvey or the other 5 girls a full scholarship. They are not bad but not amazing either.

Where does Morgan Harvey fit on a team indoors that is trying to win an NCAA title? She fits back in her dorm room cheering on her teammates through the Internet. I would be absolutely shocked if she is ever present at the NCAA indoor championships as anything but a spectator. I am not being mean (and certainly not the psychotic bashing that you are doing to BAS because of your absolute ignorance of how college athletics works). I am just pointing out reality. If she can split 53 for 400 then she has the speed to run well over 400 hurdles outdoors and possibly be on a 4x4 team at NCAA indoors but I doubt she has that speed. That is likely what BAS saw in just a few weeks that red flagged her.

Calm down and try to take a step back. Go to the NCAA list online and look objectively where she stand. Try to be realistic. Then try to understand that BAS has a huge cleanup job she needs to do at UT. Like I have said before, I would not have done it that way but it was certainly a viable option. As several people have said, after hundreds of Letsrun posts, I think it is safe to say that most any coach would not want to deal with helicopter parents like you. We can agree to disagree if you still don't understand because your ability to judge what is or is not moral is quite obviously based on a huge lack of understanding. Have a nice evening and try to let go of the hate. It is not hurting anyone but you - I can assure you of that. It will barely be a blip on the recruiting radar screen.

Quite a few people, which is why this thread is so long, and why there are several articles on the incident.

To believe one cannot judge what is moral and immoral is to hold that the statement "Murder is morally wrong," or "The Holocaust was morally wrong," or "Rape is morally wrong," or "Plucking out the eyeballs of infants is morally wrong," cannot be verified.

This is an absurd claim.

You think it was, but have been unable to give a rational reason why you think it was.

No.

You thinking something, but not having a rational reason for why you believe it, is not besides the point.

It shows that you are acting irrationally.

It being Division I athletics has no bearing on the moral status of her actions.

No one is required to meet any standard. People can act how they want to act.

Criticizing bad behavior is not a crusade.

It making me feel important or not making me feel important has no bearing on the moral status of BAS's actions.

It is irrelevant.

You have continually failed to respond to my objections.

You refuse to change your view.

You are, without question, acting irrationally.

IT'S HAPPENING

http://i.imgur.com/2WTiRhz.png?1

What objections? All you do is say "she's not moral! She's not moral!" Myself and others have educated you already that you subjectively believing that this isn't moral has no bearing on anything. That isn't an objection. BAS is there to win, not make you happy.

Why am I fine with her actions?

1) Those girls were initially given scholarships FAR beyond their ability. No way can BAS win with that much money tied to mediocrity.

2) the scholarships were honored.

3) the girls did not lose eligibility.

4) she could have allowed them to compete a few times, burned a year of eligibility, and then cut them like I would have but she didn't.

I'm sorry this whole thing wasn't unicorns and roses for you and your daughter, but welcome to the real world. Division 1 athletics is tough, it's a privilege and it isn't about handouts or being fair.

This is my first post in this thread, I have no affiliation with UT or any of the athletes that got cut. I was a D1 walk on at a Big 12 school that was cut my sophomore year and worked hard on my own in the off season ran a few races unattached and earned my way back on to the team and even to a small scholarship.

With that said BAS is insane and so are the people defending her. People like her are a disease to the sport.

no affiliations wrote:

This is my first post in this thread, I have no affiliation with UT or any of the athletes that got cut. I was a D1 walk on at a Big 12 school that was cut my sophomore year and worked hard on my own in the off season ran a few races unattached and earned my way back on to the team and even to a small scholarship.

With that said BAS is insane and so are the people defending her. People like her are a disease to the sport.

So when you got cut were you given the same access to facilities and equipment as the athletes on the roster? Probably not. And if you were, you got lucky.

Once an athlete is removed from the roster they become general population and have the same access to facilities as the rest of the student body.

Its not like she said "hey, come to UT you will have a long career and race every week!" You have to keep in mind that she did not recruit these kids and even though she recruited Harvey at PSU - they are very different programs and what it takes to be a top (full scholarship) kid in the B1G vs the SEC is very different. If she only offered her 80% at PSU what makes you think she should get 100% at UT?

While Coach Alford-Sullivan may have come off as cold, she did the same thing that just about every coach in the country has to do on some level. Decide, before wasting too much of either party's time, if a kid fits the needs of the team. It happens in all divisions. I would much rather be told before my season was used than run a few meets and get the boot. And from the looks of things they ended up in programs that they fit... if these kids were really SEC level sprinters/hurdlers they would not have missed a beat in terms of training and should have been able to pick up where they left off before getting cut. My understanding is they could use the track just not during the times the team was using them. No excuse for not stay in in shape... maybe not hurdle ready or 100/200 ready but still in very good shape. The had a month to get prepared and I would assume summer training prior to arriving in Knoxville. I have seen plenty of athletes go from cut/looking for a tryout to on the roster by training on their own with limited access to facilities. Maybe she could have been "nicer" but that is debatable.

Bottom line is she cut kids that didn't fit what she needs/wants in her program. It happens, people get fired, laid-off, cut - whatever its the real world.

#2, and carbon copy the AD and University President

Since when did this thread turn into a "defend Beth Sullivan's actions"? Towards the front of the thread everyone was ripping on her then these last couple of pages everyone has been stading up for her, now I think the same person has been posting

Fiery agony wrote:

Since when did this thread turn into a "defend Beth Sullivan's actions"? Towards the front of the thread everyone was ripping on her then these last couple of pages everyone has been stading up for her, now I think the same person has been posting

Her detractors, which included, or would include the vast majority of LRers have made their point. All that's left on the other side are the trolls and, probably, Beth or her husband.

Don't worry, though. We'll resurrect this thread next year when recruiting season starts. Not that it will be necessary, though. UT's results so far this year have been poor, it's still a mediocre school academically (that's probably being charitable..), and, it's still located in Knoxville. Distance runners - if that's who BAS is angling for, tend to be good students, to prefer cool unpolluted air and to look for coaches who can help them excel, rather than the other way around.

If all BAS has as a coach is her ability to 'spot SEC-level talent' then, she won't be working as one much longer

Wait a second wrote:

Bottom line is she cut kids that didn't fit what she needs/wants in her program. It happens, people get fired, laid-off, cut - whatever its the real world.

Another failed effort to reframe the issue.

It's not an employer/employee relationship. Not even a little bit.

Any word from the school's administration on managing the fallout? This is a school unworthy of the title "institution" if they do nothing.

Hahaha!! wrote:

Like it or not, BAS came in to clean up a huge mess. Your daughter does not fit in the plan.

...

I am not being mean (and certainly not the psychotic bashing that you are doing to BAS because of your absolute ignorance of how college athletics works). I am just pointing out reality. If she can split 53 for 400 then she has the speed to run well over 400 hurdles outdoors and possibly be on a 4x4 team at NCAA indoors but I doubt she has that speed. That is likely what BAS saw in just a few weeks that red flagged her.

The reality "of how college athletics works" is that it did not take Sullivan "a few weeks" after being hired - and by the way, it was months, not weeks, after she was hired before she cut the affected runners - to figure out what she wanted to do with Tennessee's roster. She knew before she took the job.

She did not just decide to leave Penn State and go to Tennessee on a whim. Nobody makes such a huge personal and professional decision without lots of careful study. Her hiring was announced July 1. NCAAs are in June. She was likely talking to Tennessee at - or even before - NCAAs, and certainly immediately afterward. And throughout this time she was undoubtedly doing her due diligence. She knew exactly the type of roster she would be inheriting at Tennessee, and exactly who the incoming recruits were and how much scholarship money was allotted to each. And moreover - and this is key - she would not have been hired by Tennessee without expressing a clear plan for what she would do to turn around the program if they hired her.

Tennessee wanted a better T&F program. Obviously - they fired their HC. They went out and interviewed coaches. They were looking for someone with a better plan for success than the old coach. Conversely, on the coaching side, the candidates all looked at what Tennessee had in place. They not only need to decide if it is a better situation than where they're at, they need to decide what they're going to need to do at Tennessee - and if it is possible to do it - to deliver the results that Tennessee is looking for. Otherwise they too will ultimately be fired of course.

Ergo, Sullivan knew before taking the job - and Tennessee knew before hiring her over the other candidates - that her plan to turn around Tennessee was going to involve redistributing some of the already committed scholarship money, i.e., not renewing some scholarships, cutting some athletes, however you want to put it. That is fine. What is not fine is that this was all known on or before July 1, but was not communicated to the affected runners until September.

It is plain as day to anyone looking at this situation that it was done to trap the runners at Tennessee for a year. It was done in this specific manner so as to eliminate the possibility that between July 1 and the beginning of the fall semester, these runners could have found other schools with open scholarship money - maybe even schools that compete directly with Tennessee. And the coup de grace, once they were trapped at Tennessee for a year under false pretenses, was cutting off all training resources, thus stunting these runners' development for the future. A truly gratuitous and shameful move.

I'm a former D-I middle distance/XC runner and have no kids affected by this situation. I have no connection to any of the parties or schools involved - not even tangentially. I ran in entirely different states and conferences, and over 20 years ago. And frankly, I'm all for orienting your T&F team around a mid-D/distance/XC core if that's what you want to do. Sounds like a good strategy to me. And yes, some people are not going to fit that plan, and ways will have to be parted. But this was done in such a way as to actually and intentionally inflict gratuitous damage on the affected athletes in the process. You don't have to be a helicopter parent to find that morally objectionable.

runDirtyrun wrote:

Wait a second wrote:

Bottom line is she cut kids that didn't fit what she needs/wants in her program. It happens, people get fired, laid-off, cut - whatever its the real world.

Another failed effort to reframe the issue.

It's not an employer/employee relationship. Not even a little bit.

Any word from the school's administration on managing the fallout? This is a school unworthy of the title "institution" if they do nothing.

Actually it kinda is. Been doing this coaching/recruiting thing dang near half my life and yeah it kind of is the same. Even if it is not...isn't the college experience in its entirety designed to prepare you for real life - sports included?

But either way the bottom line IS that she cut kids that didn't fit her needs/wants. It happens - would you really rather she keep your daughter let her race once or twice and then have your daughter get presented with: you know what, sorry you spent all of Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec, & Jan here training but you aren't what i want on my team and now that it is too late for you to transfer you are stuck here until May. Oh and BTW's you don't get to use the facilities unless we are not using them and thanks for that season you just burned up (cause those ARE actual rules)! But hey at least I didn't do this a month into the season what a disaster that would have been!

Yeah ok Mr./Mrs. Harvey wrote:

runDirtyrun wrote:

Another failed effort to reframe the issue.

It's not an employer/employee relationship. Not even a little bit.

Any word from the school's administration on managing the fallout? This is a school unworthy of the title "institution" if they do nothing.

Actually it kinda is. Been doing this coaching/recruiting thing dang near half my life and yeah it kind of is the same. Even if it is not...isn't the college experience in its entirety designed to prepare you for real life - sports included?

You have no clue what working life is like outside your bubble, that's insulated by academia.

These parents would be on here complaining if BAS did it in June, September, or the next year when they would be complaining that their daughter lost a year of eligibility.

I have little doubt that she knew which direction the program was going but I will argue with the statement that she did it to keep these young ladies off of another SEC team. Again using Morgan Harvey because she is the only one that I have done any research on - she is not an SEC impact athlete. I would assume that if a team in the SEC spent a full on Morgan Harvey then that would help Tennessee more than hurt them. The only team where Morgan Harvey was worth a full was Vanderbilt and maybe Ole Miss. Any points in those programs are a bonus.

illiniowl wrote:

It is plain as day to anyone looking at this situation that it was done to trap the runners at Tennessee for a year. It was done in this specific manner so as to eliminate the possibility that between July 1 and the beginning of the fall semester, these runners could have found other schools with open scholarship money - maybe even schools that compete directly with Tennessee. And the coup de grace, once they were trapped at Tennessee for a year under false pretenses, was cutting off all training resources, thus stunting these runners' development for the future. A truly gratuitous and shameful move.

The whole post is excellent, but for me this bit describes it nicely.

Who would want to associate with people that do that to others?

runDirtyrun wrote:

Yeah ok Mr./Mrs. Harvey wrote:

Actually it kinda is. Been doing this coaching/recruiting thing dang near half my life and yeah it kind of is the same. Even if it is not...isn't the college experience in its entirety designed to prepare you for real life - sports included?

You have no clue what working life is like outside your bubble, that's insulated by academia.

False, but good try.

This may all be true - but Morgan Harvey still held down a scholarship for that year whether or not she was allowed to participate with the team, a scholarship that couldn't be reused by UT unless the athlete elected to leave school or otherwise violate the conditions of her scholarship. The unceremonious way she was booted from the team additionally may have been an attempt to get her to leave school immediately. If that were true that's definitely unethical and contrary to the stated goal of the NCAA. It also might constitute an inducement to breach a contract and subject to a civil lawsuit.The "no comment" stance taken by UT leads me to believe that the university believes that it might indeed be vulnerable to a lawsuit here.