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

A big problem with modern society is people are always allowed to resign quietly so nothing comes out. Rumors sometimes are posted on LRC and then we are put in a bind. On the one hand, you want to leave them up so new ADs might be aware of them. But in my mind if an AD is dumb enough to hire a coach who resigns mid-season without some SERIOUS questions, then the AD deserves what he or she gets (although the kids do not)

robertjohnson@letsrun.com

Very few AD's care who coaches cross-country or track. They want someone who will follow rules, ask for little, and cause no problems. Few AD's know enough about the sport to hire the person best for the job anyway. Usually it is the best athlete that they have heard of, usually from their school. Few of these people have obtained any real experience with coaching beyond training with the team after graduation. Most with 'real world' experience do not blur the lines like the Toledo ex-coach. Drinking, partying, texting, rampant profanity, hitting on the girls,..... Sounds like one of the guys team members, not a coach. Kick his azz out, then address the real problem, universities that don't do their homework or care about the sport and will hire any schmuck that comes along.

For the love God, A Duck! Do you need to turn every thread into a senseless rant concerning your pathological obsession with the Johnson Brothers? Before you lecture class about maturity, try growing yourself. Until then, keep quiet. The adults are busy having a discussion.

Do you think Kevin will be spending Valentine\'s day drinking alone? Think he will be moving into his mommy\'s basement soon?

disgusted wrote:

Screw anyone who defends this prick. Coach/athlete is by it's very nature a PATERNAL relationship and anyone who chases their athletes IS guilty of a form of pedophilia/incest. Even if that is not what it is in the legal, sense, emotionally that is what's going on.

Yes they're "adults" but they're also vulnerable and immature, and are not to blame when a coach allows a situation like this to escalate- to say nothing of all the alcohol-related stuff which is awful as well.

Creeps like this give all coaches a bad name and shame on all the schools who let these incidents get swept under the rug.

GET THESE CREEPS OUT OF OUR PROFESSION.

Anyone who chases athletes is guilty of pedophilia/incest?

FYI pedophile:an adult who is sexually attracted to children.

Incest: Sexual relations between people classed as being too closely related to marry each other. The crime of having sexual intercourse with a parent, child, sibling, or grandchild.

You then go onto say even if its not in a legal sense it is emotionally? Emotional pedophilia and incest....um, ok?

You are a retard get off the forum and get an education.

disgusted wrote:

PATERNAL

chases

pedophilia/incest

swept under the rug

OUR

You my friend are in serious need of a dictionary.

No Dog in This Fight wrote:

For the love God, A Duck! Do you need to turn every thread into a senseless rant concerning your pathological obsession with the Johnson Brothers? Before you lecture class about maturity, try growing yourself. Until then, keep quiet. The adults are busy having a discussion.

Lol.

When they pimp themselves every chance they get, inject themselves into every topic -- they are fair game.

MAC alum wrote:

it's tough to say what is worse... messing around with your athletes or doing it when you're married with kids.

Not really. If you are actually scoring,

1 + 0 = 1

1 + 1 = 2

There are TWO blogs going about Hadsell here at Letsrun

Damn Mess at UT wrote:

There are TWO blogs going about Hadsell here at Letsrun

You don't know what a blog is, do you?

The Single Voice of Reason wrote:

Thanks for your response, KMB. I'm not sure we'd ever agree wholly on some aspects of this situation.

I'm not sure that we disagree on anything, really. You're emphasizing the fact that no matter what, Kevin stepped far out of bounds and nothing mitigated that fact. I agree (as does Kevin) but I'm not spending as much time with it because to me it seems obvious on its face, and none of what I've written here is an attempt to dilute it. Maybe some people here really are trying to stress aspects of the personalities and actions of others involved in this in an effort to go down the "well, she sort of asked for it" road (although I haven't seen much of that). As you say, even if that were true, it's a different issue.

What I do question is the whole "sexual harassment" thing (which Robert helpfully put in the subject line of this thread and is not why Kevin resigned at all; even the U. T. administration found no reason to pursue that angle) and of course all of the stuff that goes along with that in a slippery-slope kind of way -- "pedophile," "predator," "pervert," "sociopath" and so on. I understand that people are pissed off and indignant and perhaps going overboard as a result, but I also know that they have been misled by the contents of the Deadspin article and the Sid Hudgens clone who wrote it. If what Kevin told me about the particulars of the interaction between himself and "Andrea" are true, which I have no reason to doubt -- the text-message details and the rest of what I already mentioned -- then applying those labels, at least in this instance, are badly off base. It's as wrongheaded and potentially injurious as calling any collegiate woman runner who's become sexually involved with her coach or even moved in that direction a Lolita or a slut or a conniving psycho bitch.

I understand that even saying these things will result in a few people shouting that I'm defending Kevin in the sense that he was unfairly coerced into quitting and all of that tired, simplistic dreck. I also trust that the more thoughtful people will understand that it is possible to simulataneously agree with those who stress that Kevin's resignation was not only proper but overdue (the EtOH adventures alone cement this) while also being contemptuous of the dishonesty that other people have promulgated throughout this mess.

Sorry to have upset you!

There are TWO different BLAH BLAH BLAH going on here at the L R MESSAGE BOARD!

Is that alright by you now?

Big Time Blogger > S. V. of R.

The Single Voice of Reason wrote:

Thanks again for your mature response & approach.

Likewise. Now maybe we can quit blogging about it here.

Uncivil Engineer wrote:

To you that's evidence that Hadsell and NotnbeingIgnorant are the same thing? You don't suppose someone might have just slipped that in there to fool easily confused people like you?

Not that I have any stake in any of this, but I really wish people as mindless as you would not procreate. The sad thing is, your daughters are probably going to be really hot and cause you fits as a result.

Don't be such an ass. If you read it carefully, I actually put a question mark after the handle name (implying it could be..) and yes, I am not very savvy with copying/pasting someone else's response on another page.

Bottom line, this guy was out of line. Period. I know all coaches are not like that-I had two different male coaches in high school when I played sports and never had any problems with them.

KMB wrote:What I do question is the whole "sexual harassment" thing (which Robert helpfully put in the subject line of this thread and is not why Kevin resigned at all; even the U. T. administration found no reason to pursue that angle) and of course all of the stuff that goes along with that in a slippery-slope kind of way -- "pedophile," "predator," "pervert," "sociopath" and so on.

I entirely disagree. The guy is a predator, a pervert, a sociopath and a misogynist. Maybe not technically a pedophile, but verging on it.

Some random parent wrote:

Don't be such an ass. If you read it carefully, I actually put a question mark after the handle name (implying it could be..)

The question mark signified that you were uncertain of the name of the poster you were replying to, not that you were questioning your own "evidence."

Some random parent wrote:

I am not very savvy with copying/pasting someone else's response on another page.

Don't worry, this takes most of us years and years of practice. "Control-C" and "Control-Y" are both tricky keystroke combinations.

Good Luck to Toledo Cross Country and Track & Field Teams. Stay focused on your studies and your training, and look out for each other!

I know that Hadsell's son is like 19. When he first started at Coastal he was an undergrad student working on a second degree. He was living in the dorms with other older students and his kid's Mom was also an undergrad student that was actually on the basketball team. She ran cross but they dated while she played hoops. Hadsell was just a student assistant helping out. This was like 20 years ago. Not as scandalous as it appears.

Someone with much more credibility than almost anyone posting here (including me) said that he would be addressing this in his blog. I am referring to Mighty Favog aka tracksuperfan (see

http://tracksuperfan.com/

).

For those of you who are not familiar with this super fan, he specializes in the collegiate scene (all divisions) AND he is a Toledo-area guy. This should be both informative and impartial.