Sports: Time is now for answers at USF

Time is now for answers at USF

By GARY SHELTON

As athletic programs go, this one always used to be so, well, cute.

In the dog-eat-dog world of collegiate athletics, the University of South Florida always struck the casual observer as something of a fuzzy puppy. There was something cuddly here, something that made you want to reach out and scratch it behind the ear, something that assured you that it wouldn't bite.

It wasn't quite the big time, of course, and that was part of the appeal. So many major programs have become as impersonal and mechanical as major corporations, covered with reflective glass to keep outsiders from peering in.

By its geography, USF exists in a golden triangle of Florida, Florida State and Miami, monolithic programs that make USF seem small in comparison. But the personality of USF was more kid brother than Big Brother, and if the expectations were lower, the accompanying scandals were less frequent, and there was charm in that. There was some grit and some pluck and some spunk, and so it was pretty easy to like the Bulls.

But times have changed at USF. For years now, the school has strained hard toward the big time, like a small boy pressed against a growth chart measuring himself. It has added football. It has joined a prestigious conference. It hired Seth Greenberg as men's basketball coach.

Now, it has landed in the middle of a scandal, as ugly and unseemly as you can imagine. Suddenly, the program doesn't seem quite so cuddly.

The women's basketball coach has been accused of racism. The athletic director has been accused of looking the other way. Whether you are the president of the college, a professor, an alumnus, a student or a casual observer, you are owed some answers.

We will learn a lot about USF from the way it handles this situation. Sadly, we have learned a lot from the way it has handled it to date. Intolerance, and the toleration of it, are not small accusations. The charges say, essentially, the women's team has the air of John Rocker, and the athletic director's office has become Nixonian, with the pressing questions being who knew what and when.

This is a big deal for USF, for women's coach Jerry Ann Winters, for athletic director Paul Griffin. This is about integrity and fairness and ethics. It is about problems and allowing them to fester. It is about the way current athletes, and potential ones, view the school. The rest of us, too.

Is Winters a racist? I don't know. But there seemed to be an underlying emphasis on skin color within the program, from the assigning of rooms to the descriptions of opponents. A report from assistant athletic director Hiram Green said there was an "undertone of racism" in the women's basketball office. It also seems clear that several players -- not just Dione Smith, the woman who has filed a lawsuit -- believed Winters was a racist.

Shouldn't that be enough? Shouldn't Griffin, armed with the charges in Green's report, have widened the investigation to find out the truth? Shouldn't Griffin have said -- shouted even -- that he would have no race problems in the program, be it football or baseball or whatever?

Instead, 12 days later, Griffin wrote a memo to USF vice president Edouard Piou saying "There has been NO issue of racial harassment."

Griffin owes an explanation on that one. How in the world do you reach that conclusion? The guy under you says it's a problem, but the guy above you is told it isn't? Because of that statement, the Equal Opportunity Affairs office ceased its investigation. The appearance is the program ran from problems, hoping they would go away, instead of addressing them.

If I am new USF president Judy Genshaft, walking into the fire, here's what I want to know:

Before he decided Green's report was incorrect, that instead of a lot of racial problems there were none at all, who did Griffin interview in his investigation? Winters? Current players? Former players? Assistants? Trainers? Surely, on something this serious, he would have kept notes. Wouldn't he?

Does Griffin think all of these players are merely frustrated because they didn't get to play enough? Don't other colleges have players on the bench who, somehow, don't sue the program?

If there was no racial harrassment, why were Winters and her team ordered to attend a four-hour diversity seminar? And why, for goodness' sakes, would Winters, whose record is well below .500, get a contract extension the same month? Which message is louder?

Has any speck of racism ever been removed from such a drive-through seminar?

Is this another case, like the Marvin Taylor rape, where the school has drug its feet before doing the right thing?

Above all, did USF know enough? Did it do enough?

If I am Genshaft, I want the answers now. I don't want to hear about "when the full story comes out."

There are two issues at hand here. Ignorance, and the ignoring of it. You decide which is more dangerous.

It comes to this: What is the job of an athletic director, really? Is it merely to hire coaches, to help with scheduling, to raise funds? Let's hope not. Let's hope the athletic director is the conscience of the program, the guy in charge of the direction, and the rules. Let's hope the athletic director is the one who defines fairness.

If I am Genshaft, I take these allegations seriously.

Isn't it time someone did?