As an alumni and regular financial supporter of the University of Wisconsin LaCrosse cross country and track teams, this is a message I never expected to be writing. About ten years ago, Derek Stanley was installed as the head cross country coach at UWL, replacing a beloved four time NCAA champion coach without any form of a competitive interview process. At the time, several of my fellow alumni and myself were very upset that this had occurred and was clearly an example of patronage, but we had no ability to change the decision. So we tried to accept it as best we could.
Largely because of my positive experiences with competing for UWL, my son made the decision to enroll and was a member of the cross country team. In October 2020, my son hosted a party with ~30 of his teammates attending. Because this was at the height of Covid, this was foolish and not condoned by me. His take was that he saw the exact same people at practice every day, so it was really no different than normal practice. Coach Stanley found out about the party, and my son readily admitted to having people over. The next day, my son, along with two teammates were suspended for the remainder of the cross country season as well as all of indoor and outdoor track. The remaining ~27 people in attendance received no consequence. Also understand that there was no police involvement with this party; there were no allegations of abuse, hazing, bullying, etc. Additionally, this followed a meeting with Coach Stanley about his place in the program, mostly about how he was going to have to step into a leadership role as an upperclassman. This meeting supposedly went well, and Coach Stanley made it clear that he was in good standing with the program, even telling him that verbatim. Over the next few weeks, the entire cross country team had three Zoom meetings which were referred to as “team culture” meetings. My son actually led the values discussion in the third team culture meeting.
In any event, he received the suspension with two expectations that were written in notes given to him 1.) He would have no involvement with the cross country or track teams, and 2.) He would not be allowed to try out for the track team in the spring. I thought that the suspension was arbitrary and excessive, especially when you consider that the vast majority of people at the party were not suspended. Despite my disappointment with the suspension I encouraged my son to take the punishment like a man, learn from it, and be ready when he would come back. For the sake of absolute clarity, there are no allegations of additional misconduct.
He reached out to Coach Stanley on 5/30/2021 to arrange a meeting about how to best reintegrate into the team for the upcoming season. After numerous attempts to arrange a meeting, Coach Stanley was finally able to meet on 6/15/2021. At that meeting, he then informed my sono that he no longer trusted and that the suspension would continue, thus expelling him from the team. I personally called Coach Stanley that evening to try to broker a compromise, but there was no ability to negotiate. A month later on 7/15/2021, we had another meeting with Coach Stanley, Track Coach Josh Buchholtz, and AD Kim Blum. We met for an hour as my we continued to determine why they felt that it was necessary to prolong the suspension. We raised some specific concerns including the arbitrary and capricious nature of Coach Stanley’s punishment of others and my son, the lack of any kind of code of conduct handbook or related policies and procedures (amazingly UWL has no code of conduct handbook), and the lack of communication about the true nature of the suspension. We believe that it is unfair for my son and others to receive a lifetime suspension for an activity for which others, who had similar levels of involvement, received no consequences. This is similar to other arbitrary consequences that Coach Stanley has leveled in the past. I also believe that this entire episode could have been mitigated by having a code of conduct handbook in place along with associated policies and procedures. I even offered to help the Athletics Department create such a handbook; the offer was rejected. To me, it seems unfair that policy is not established and “just made up as we go along”. I have reviewed the student athlete code of conduct handbooks at a number of peer institutions (UW Whitewater, UW Eau Claire, and UW Oshkosh). All of those handbooks are readily available on the schools’ websites. According to each, my son's offense would not even rise to the level of any form of discipline, much less 1½ seasons’ worth of suspension, much less lifetime suspension. For those institutions, the first or second violation would have resulted in a meeting with the coach and an apology to the team. His first violation resulted in a lifetime suspension. This is completely out of market compared to peer institution policy. Further, Coach Stanley did not follow UW System protocol and issue a formal suspension letter. He also failed to follow UW System protocol of advising my son of his due process and appeal rights. Additionally, had my son been honestly told in October or November 2020 that he would not be welcome back, we would have carefully considered other options. He could have transferred to compete for another school. Because of the fact that I had not been informed of this permanent suspension until 6/15/2021, the transfer options were extremely limited. Further, he has incurred expenses related to 2021-2022 housing. He potentially could have appealed the initial suspension. In addition, he made a decision to not pursue an internship within his field of study (actuarial science because we all know that is a major that is full of troublemakers who can't be trusted) and instead stay in LaCrosse for the summer to train for the upcoming season. Had he known about the permanent suspension, I would have likely been elsewhere for the summer with a paid internship. Finally, I would like to note that there were no juniors or seniors on the cross country roster at the end of the 2020 season. I believe in the importance of upperclassman leadership. The reason that there were no juniors or seniors was because they had all either been suspended or quit due to the mercurial personalities of the cross country coaching staff. The suspensions and quitting does not foster team cohesion or success. Permanent suspensions do not allow for any form of learning or redemption. Unfortunately, I believe that the 6/15 and 7/15 meeting did not accomplish anything. I am frustrated for myself and my child, but I am also frustrated for his former teammates who have had similar outcomes as well as future student athletes who will suffer similar fates as Coach Stanley is further emboldened.
As I said at the onset, I wish that I did not have to put this message out. I care deeply about the UWL Cross Country and Track programs, but I also care about what is right. I hope that potential recruits and their parents learn from our story.