As a recent Patriot League alum (Holy Cross '18) I always looked to Spangler and the BU program as an example of how a team should be run. I was decent in college (made it to every PL meet from sophomore year on despite being a walk-on) but watching the quantum leap that team has made under him made me think I went to the wrong school. In just a few years he took the women's team from irrelevancy to the top of the podium twice in a row. The men's team is within spitting distance of a Patriot League title, a sentence that would have seemed impossible a few years ago with the perennial dominance of the service schools.
Spangler is a great coach, but more importantly he's a good man. I run for a local team (hint: our logo is a unicorn) and have raced at BU many times since college. Spangler has been a warm and welcoming meet director and has accommodated plenty of last minute event changes for us (and other teams as well) that he didn't have to. His athletes love him, and in addition to the improvement that almost everyone shows under his tutelage, they're all good students as well. He's well-known and well-respected in the Boston running community (unlike Gabe Sanders, who I'd literally never heard of before two days ago). A quick google search shows that Sanders has a strong resume, but I can't imagine that anyone who would fire an extremely successful coach for no logical reason has their head on straight.
Unless there's something here that the school is covering up, this seems like a personal issue that Sanders is taking out on Spangler, which is frankly sh*tty.
I personally have a very high opinion of Spangler, and everyone I know who has been one of his athletes, worked with him, or even just had a conversation with him all has the same sentiment - he's a good guy and a better coach. This is a real bad look for BU track and field. I donated last year as a way of saying "thank you for everything you do for the Boston running community"... don't know that I'll be doing that again knowing my money is going to somebody who axes a good person in the middle of a pandemic for no good reason.