For one, I don't think you ever want anyone to have done what he's accused of doing, but it's also because Mrs. Last Honest Sport and I are fans of him and his Connecticut women's basketball team.
When I first saw the story, I thought there was no way it could be true. Geno is a man who has coached young women for decades with no hint of scandal in how he treated them, whose top lieutenant (Chris Dailey) is a woman and who has been known for years as a friend and supporter of women coaches such as Sherri Coale, Muffet McGraw and the late Maggie Dixon, among others. He's also a married man with daughters.
("But what about his relationship with Pat Summitt?" you may be asking. I've always thought their feud -- which may be thawing -- was less about gender and more about being the big swinging whistle in women's college basketball ... a status he wanted and she wanted to keep.)
As you might expect, he has had his defenders since the news came out.
"Obviously, I don't have any idea what did or didn't happen,'' said former UConn All-American Rebecca Lobo, who has known Auriemma for more than 20 years. "But I've only ever known him to be someone of utmost character. And I think the world of him. He's always been of the highest character in every dealing that I've ever had with him or any dealing I've ever witnessed him having with somebody else."In other precincts, there may be people whose dislike of him make them think that he absolutely could have done such a thing. For example, this. (The funny part is the admonition in the first two comments to stick to the story, as if they knew what was coming.) In the words of poster AirVol:
To me, it's hard to believe much of what people do to get themselves in trouble. Having said that, with everything we've heard or know about him, why would you have such a hard time believing it? I won't be surprised if others come forward with similar charges.But none of us -- not Rebecca Lobo, not AirVol, not me -- knows what happened, and I've already pointed out, our opinions are easily determined by our biases. As Mrs. Last Honest Sport and I were talking about the case over dinner last night, the conversation turned to the Duke lacrosse case, where a lot of the assumption of guilt came because of the white, relatively well-off jocks appearing to be, to put it mildly, jerks.
However, being a jerk isn't criminal (phew!), and while I wouldn't have been shocked if the players had been guilty, it never did seem like there was any evidence, and the case, as we all know now, came apart.
In all likelihood, we'll see what evidence does or doesn't exist in Auriemma's case. But until then, we should probably heed the words of Mechelle Voepel.
There will be a lot of immediate speculation by people about which side they believe. These situations can be precarious for journalists, frankly. There are times when we can prudently state opinions. But there are other times when we need to let the system take its course as we try to sort out what happened.
I can say in nearly two decades of working as a journalist with Auriemma, he has never been anything but professional. In fairness, I do not interact with him in any other capacity. No one has ever told me, on or off the record, about him mistreating them in any way.
By the same token, I have not ever spoken with Hardwick. Her allegations raise very real, serious issues that women in the workforce still face in our society. Whether her case in particular actually has merit, though, must be adjudicated.
