Fair or foul: College cross country coach takes his team to Olive Garden to celebrate big conference run, is promptly fired

Probably not that much tbh. Their athletic department is bad at every sport

Foul. Football team eats steak every week. Insane.

What football team? They don't have football..

I looked and saw they AD is brand new. That means different philosophy and different ways of doing things. The AD may just not like cross country and track and the department is not in good financial shape.

That does seem rather harsh discipline.

Wait, this guy brought his team out to a team dinner without prior approval from compliance or checking to see if he had the money in his budget?

That's a good way to get yourself fired.

Yet if the coach didn’t feed the team. Imagine the outrage for not providing and nourishment and you know the coward administrators would stab him in the back for following their own policies.

Pretty sure that ordering a "Tour of Italy" for each of your athletes would exceed most program budgets.

your chronology stops before we progress towards next year. having fired the coach you just undermined the recruiting value of whatever they accompished at conference -- as, it's a new guy. you undermined the existing roster, who may feel the admins are irresponsible, etc.

and, importantly, i am a new recruit for next year, never heard of the place, i do some net digging. what do you think i get from what just happened? they fire coaches. they are cheap. setting aside the small college down the road may be just as cheap, you just broadcast how cheap you are. i don't think this is a normal recruiting question. but you just broke spades on it anyway.

that website was designed by idiots

the college is run by smarter idiots

Olive Garden is perfect HS / UG fare the AD has a cleft a**hole apparently

According to social media, it appears the AD at question took them to NAIA Nationals and they seem to be eating quite well. What is the actual story here!?

According to the AD's Bio:

"He hopes to guide Columbia College Athletics to national prominence through judicious budgetary utilization, effective fundraising strategies, competitive recruiting efforts, and a positive impact on student-athlete and fan experiences."

One of the females going to nationals wrote on social media:

"None of this would’ve been possible without Bishop, and you guys took him away from us when we needed him most. No other team went to nationals this season and we had 10 athletes qualify. The way this situation was handled was horrible and as a student athlete I feel as though I was stripped away of my voice. You hurt my family. My voice will not be silenced any longer. #IStandWithBishop"

If the AD accompanied them to nationals, I am sure it is a very uncomfortable situation for all of them. Why didn't he send the head track coach or one of his two assistants?

They don't break down overall expenses by sport on that site. They do give you total "game day" expenses. Men's and women's track spend $435 and $310 per athlete, respectively. Every other sport spends over $1,000 per athlete. The two other men's sports, basketball and golf, spend four and twelve times as much per athlete as men's track. Seems like they could afford a little Olive Garden after conferences and still stay on budget. If they got rid of the two men's golfers - what's the point of having a "team" of two golfers? - the track team could eat like kings at every meet.

That's going to be some awkward after meet dinners between the students and the AD. I wouldn't turn my back on my dinner plate if I was the AD......words of wisdom

Angeline Kravitz, one of the three athletes to qualify for nationals, recently wrote this on the university athletic department's Instagram:

"Thank you so much from the support. I would like to give a big thanks to my forever coach, @coachjustinbishop . I cannot thank you enough for your help and none of this would’ve been possible without you. As an athlete that is a part of the distance team @columbiaxctrack and the women’s ASA representative for track/ field, I would like express how painful it was not having you with us for nationals, all over Olive Garden. Watching the other team’s coaches cheering them on, I was just waiting to hear you go “YOURE IN blah blah blah PLACE KEEP GOING KIDDO DOING GREAT!!” I cannot express how emotional this race was. I was solely running for you coach and will continue running for you. I apologize for how Columbia College school and Athletics has treated you. I stand with you."

their other teams are somewhere between mediocre and bad and this likely ensures XC gets that caliber of coach and remaining runners next year.

i've already said my piece on this sends a horrible message on image and cheapness. i know schools have varying budgets and some operate under constrictions. but you don't want to advertise it. "hey, guess what, we're the cheap ones who won't even splurge for olive garden."

re why the AD went, it looks to me like it was 1 coach and about 10 athletes per sex. small team with 1 coach. when they fired the coach, who else is going? this underlines my critique about the timing. unnecessary wild west crap. the school and AD weren't going broke over an incremental added expense of $20-40. deal with it after the season. this is firing your coach before the bowl game. silly.

i underline "incremental" because while the moralists want to make it about olive garden, in practical terms the beef is really more limited and "marginal." the difference between what he was supposed to spend vs. what he did spend. since he's not feeding them for free, he has to spend x. so the foul is the y in x+y when he goes over the x limit. which at olive garden prices, we're probably talking $10-15 a plate vs. what the limit was supposed to be.

for example, if he was allowed $10/person and spent $15/person, it's a $5x21 foul. hundred bucks max. my guess is more like $20-40. ticky tack and no reason to fire before nationals. you call him in, reprimand him, dock his check, and you instruct him if he does it again at nationals he will be fired on the spot and anyone who calls for a reference will be told he repeatedly exceeded meal expense limits.

wow i can't believe it actually was all over olive garden! That is INSANE and if i were a donor to the school I would want the AD sacked

If the story is true, that is a shocker. Also, If the University cannot afford to take the athletes to Olive Garden after an out-of-town conference meet it is probably time to start looking at reducing sports on that campus. I was a HC at the NAIA level, and my team went to Olive Garden many times on the road just for a regular out-of-town meet / usually Cheesecake Factory for nationals or something equivalent etc. I never once got approval (or was asked to) and was never questioned by either one of my AD's. You get a budget at the beginning of the year, and you stick to it. Maybe the coach was way over budget and kept spending after being warned.