Discussion of Deadspin's Article: The Sexual Harassment Claims That Brought Down Toledo’s XC Coach

@MAC COM

The guys gotta burn on the message boards for what he's done. This is where every serious runner will hear about his misdeeds & he will be made a pariah. This is what he deserves and will discourage others who are thinking of texting their athletes. I am pretty sure your the coach too ya diddler

*sexting their atheletes

Also, defenders keep saying that multiple women on the team are supporting the coach. Did I miss where that happened? Can someone link where verified members of the team have come out backing the coach? I just haven't seen it, but it keeps getting referred to.

First I want to say I do have full knoweledge of the University of Toledo and its athletics for the last 7 years.It is an outstanding university and the athletes associated with cross country and track and field are an amazing intelligent group of kids....Get a life people...go back to Jersey Shore television quit sensationalizing inaccurate facts you have no knoweledge of.The man is gone....Let this team heal...END OF STORY

LOL. Ok Macmom...or should I say Handsell you creepo!

MACtfxc wrote:

Any athlete or coach in the MAC has never had respect for him. Wherever this "power in the running community" stems from is fabricated.

Even I know that is bullshit. Some of his own athletes have said that they respected him even when they knew what was going on, and didn't someone named Sue Parks who coaches in the MAC say she did too? Now you can just dismiss all of them as clueless or deluded, but you're still wrong.

As a side note I am starting to wonder what the average SAT score required to get into a typical MAC school is. Under 1000 is my guess. I mean stuff like this...

Former Runner wrote:

There have been numerous incidents of Hadsell driving drunk. Everyone knew it was wrong, at least those who weren't wrapped up in being his pet.

Good thing at least SOME of the UT students were aware that drunk driving is not a good idea. Maybe that is what Hadsell meant when he said he would die coaching at the school, not that he would be there another 40 years but that he'd ram the van into a bridge support someday.

While I normally disapprove of "admin abuse," I'd get a real kick out of the brojos uncovering exactly how many "supporters" of Hadsell are posting on this thread...and how many of those supporters are from the same IP address in Toledo, OH...

Chris O5 wrote:

And to everyone saying he was a great coach and that should give him some slack. Sandusky won a National Championship.

Where in this thread did anyone say or even suggest that his coaching record mitigates his personal conduct? Please be specific.

dddd ddd dd wrote:

I'm astounded how many people are jumping on the Hadsell bandwagon. Though this being LetsRun, it could be one person (maybe kevin himself!) just making all of the "supportive" posts.

I'll ask you more or less the same question I asked the last person. What is this bandwagon and what constitutes support? I see one or two that might be construed as taking "his side" but what people seem too thick headed to grasp is that calling the woman who went to staff a liar is not equivalent to supporting Hadsell. Saying that Mark Furhman is a racist pig doesn't mean OJ didn't kill two people...well, if you're an ignorant angry juror I guess it does, but you get my point.

We are slowly moving away from the issue at hand.

A popular and successful coach is being accused of things that may or may not be true. Kevin Hadsell has admitted fault in the situation and has apologized. He can't do anything more than that. However, for this young lady, Emma, to continue running her mouth about things that did not happen (things such as driving the university van drunk), is just a little bit distasteful, don't you think? As a former mac athlete, I've been around and have discussed things from numerous parties involved. No one, and I mean NO ONE, should be ignorantly taking the side of either parties unless you were there and you know what is going on. You can't believe everything you hear, especially from an article that is borderline tabloid. The information that article presented is biased and 100% one sided; the author was tipped off by Emma Kertesz herself. Emma knew these things were going on months ago, and yet waited and waited until she said something. Doesn't that reek of scandal people? If she was really concerned about the well-being of her teammates and any other collegiate female athletes, she would have said something sooner. Instead, she took her phone, changed and manipulated text messages, and turned her coach in for apparently "sexually harassing" her. Anyone with some type of cognitive ability can tell by looking at those texts that there are pieces missing. Emma Kertesz did in fact have some type of interest in Hadsell whether it be sexually, or for some type of personal gain, perhaps both. Emma Kertesz is a sneaky, manipulative, pseudo victim that deserves just as much punishment as Kevin Hadsell. How dare she use him and the Toledo program for her personal gain? That team built themselves from the ground up with the help of coach Hadsell. And for someone to bring Ari Fisher into this mix, shame on you! Ari Fisher is an outstanding athlete who shares nothing but love and commitment to that program. In all sincerity, I bet Kertesz was flustered that such a prodigy got that assistant position over her. Far-fetched, but that's how women are these days. Such a shame. All of the current athletes and close friends and family of the Toledo program are aware of this situation, and know the truth behind what is going on. In fact, I am sure any MAC athlete that has been around this team knows that there is something fishy about this story. Kevin Hadsell didn't do this on his own. It takes two to tango. I honestly feel bad for the guy. I feel bad for Emma Kertesz's family who has no idea what she has done/been doing. I feel bad for her boyfriend, who apparently has no idea this texting was going on when they were dating. And finally, I feel extremely sad for Hansons Running for allowing her to be a part of their program. They have no idea what they are getting themselves into. Such a bad reputation to carry into such a great program. I hope they drop her like a bad habit.

Ill say it again: welcome to 2013 and Internet blogging. Hadsell said it himself, he knows there are consequences to his actions and is ready for them. Well here it is. Gossip, rumors, truth, all this backlash is a consequnce to his actions over the past decade. Everyone involved in the running community knows and is expressing he is a pig. Too bad. Should've thought about that before he mentally and physically f-cked with people he was supposed to support and mentor.

I am a young coach of the opposite sex so this especially pisses me off. People like him are the reason why young coaches sometimes get a bad rap. And it is unfortunate for those (like me) who are responsible, respectful and coaching for all the right reasons. I love coaching and it makes my skin crawl that someone in a similar position of authority could do such a thing that Hadsell did.

The 'bus company' explanation does not seem to fit, as they were reported to have vehicles driven by different people and a different vehicle for the women and men-- with a bus it would be just one vehicle. I have no definite knowledge but the response sounds questionable.

As for Hadsell, he was bounced because of the (multiple) intimate relationships with students. However, the entire program he ran was flawed through to the core.

1) Thew weight issue with the women -- not enough play; as a parent I would have gone to the administration and then to every outlet possible to fry this guy on what is well-known to be an difficult issue with teenagers and young women. With this reputation out there, fewer parents would be willing to have daughters run for the program. You can have success pushing that 'button' if you have enough girls so that losing half of them still leaves you with some good results for a couple of years (look at the legion of high school girls with this problem that had their two years before college and were never what was hoped' or those that had a great year or two and then petered out. Clearly, he did not have the best interest of the women high on his list.

2) The treatment of the girls on the team in terms of attention etc., highlighted by his star - she put up with it for a long time because otherwise he shut her out on the running/training end.

3) History -- this is not the first place with lots of rumors, and when there are multiple rumors from multiple places it is usually too much to be guesses and nothing. Rather, his approach was flawed overall.

4) Sex and relationships with students? Multiple times and harassing one he is interested in while sleeping with her roommate?

You are quite something. I don't know who you are or what your role is in this situation, but this is extraordinary.

QuitBeingIgnorant wrote:

We are slowly moving away from the issue at hand.

A popular and successful coach is being accused of things that may or may not be true. Kevin Hadsell has admitted fault in the situation and has apologized. He can't do anything more than that.... Emma Kertesz is a sneaky, manipulative, pseudo victim that deserves just as much punishment as Kevin Hadsell.

I enjoy how the drinking and driving a team van vs. on a bus controversy is now taking shape. Whatever happened, being drunk in front of your athletes on a school sponsored trip is not acceptable in any regards, and sounds like someone with serious issues.

I'm not against drinking, or have a team policy against it; I know most of the time when athletes have gone out or had parties. I myself have gone coaches socials or out while away for meets. No a big deal. Its one things when its on your free time away from the team, but as a representative of the university, when in contact with the athletes, that type of behavior is ridiculous no matter how you look at it.

Stop changing your handle Macmom/Quitbeingignorant/HANDSELL. You're pretty obvious with your shitty 1 paragraph block answers.

You might make more sense if you separated your points a bit.

D.C. runner wrote:

Guys, I really think you should come up with a clear, public set of guidelines, one that's available to all posters. I think you should require username registration to post

This comes up over and over. Practically everyone favors registration, and the things that have driven quite a few others away from the site would all but evaporate if it were implemented. Time and again rojo or wejo have come here and announced that a bunch of posts in a given thread were deleted because they were all coming from one computer thanks to a single person trying to give the appearance of mass support or merely trying to cause trouble. Posts get deleted from here seemingly at random sometimes -- I mean yesterday I posted a thread saying Happy Darwin Day that was totally harmless and that went poof. Yet wejo and rojo seem unable to add two and two here and accept that if nothing else their job would be far easier if people had to register a username. I don't know why anyone not in possession of dickhead motives would balk , and for that matter people could still be complete dickheads anyway, since anyone could register any name.

Not defending the guy.

It is human nature to be attracted to younger girls. Men see youth as fertility. We allow naked women in magazines or on porn sites once they are 18. We actually glorify them. Then when an older man gets involved with a younger female, who is around 24/7 for a few years, we are shocked that this happenend? It is bound to happen. Women are attracted to power, men in authority, the lead dog in the pack, etc. In small bubble of XC runners, the lead dog is the coach.

It would be hard to disallow to single people into the profession, because it probably turns out badly in more cases than not. There are some very famous and successful coaches who wives were once their athletes. Someone should do a study and find out the percentage amongst college coaches and see how many were former athletes of the school. I know first hand of college coaches from other sports would try and date the athletes of the track team.

Unfortunately this happens more often than we think and both parties are too blame. In this case, the coach continually kept putting his hand in the cookie jar.

The BIG question is why did Emma decide to go pro after all this happened to the girls she so deeply cares about? If things had fallen apart wouldn't they need her the most? Doesn't sound like she cares deeply at all about her team and saving them....

She also tried to quit the team in December and nobody wanted to take her because any idiot would not want to throw away two seasons of college eligibility. ....an amateur move made my an amateur runner.

This is quite a thread. I am sorry for all those who were directly affected by the coach in this situation but am loving the fall out from all the crazies. Keep it going!!!!!!!

QuitBeingIgnorant wrote:

...blah blah borderline illiteracy...

Once again proving you are not a regular poster and don't understand the internet -- stop changing usernames and then posting in exactly the same style and about the same thing (supporting Hadsell and tearing down Kertesz)...

And let's get this straight -- you're saying we should be careful about believing everything we read and eviscerating someone over the internet based on someone else's word, and then you're proceeding to tell us Emma Kertesz is a crazy floozy? Do you have a basic understanding of hypocrisy? You're truly, truly pathetic.

I know nothing about Emma Kertesz. I don't know if she has any reason to have an agenda beyond the truth getting out. I don't really see how it matters, however: there are MULTIPLE sources apparently on the record about Hadsell's multiple relationships w/ female students and other infractions (intoxication, etc.), so however much you try to slander Kertesz in some weird attempt to defend the coach, it's really beside the point.

Whatever you feel about her or her agenda, what he did was still WILDLY inappropriate. Even if some girl on the team was basically inviting him to have sex with her, he's the COACH. The only appropriate response would be to remain professional and not get involved with an athlete.

Painting Kertesz as some kind of malicious predator is just basic misogyny. Poor sex obsessed male coach simply can't resist some distance running femme fatale? Give me a break.