After getting kicked around in the local and national press for a few months now, Ronny has come out swinging with a Michael Wilbon article today in the Washington Post. I think most people recognize Wilbon as a pretty fair guy, so if he's seen the evidence and is convinced, I wouldn't be surprised if a jury would see it similarly. I imagine this will be settled out of court, but as they say, the plot thickens.
Picture Becomes Clearer At Ball State, and It's Not Pretty
There are people at Ball State who want you to believe everything that went wrong is Ronny Thompson's fault. They tell folks Thompson is arrogant and distant and a bad basketball coach. They tell you Thompson didn't extend himself to the booster club. They point to a new black coach as indication that everything's hunky-dory on campus and that Thompson's claims of a racially hostile environment are bogus, despite the coach's photos of hateful signs laying on the floor of what used to be his office. What they don't tell you is that the Ball State athletic program was already dealing with a selling-books-for-profit scandal that suggested to the NCAA a lack of institutional control and took place long before Ronny Thompson was hired. Some of these same Ball State people aren't forthcoming with the fact that the basketball team had only five players when Thompson arrived and was told by his boss to pass on cocktail parties and concentrate on recruiting. They don't tell you that they didn't even have basketballs for practice or that the players weren't going to class. They don't tell you Ronny's wife was so worried about the expression of racial hostility that she put her two children in the car and drove from the Ball State campus in Muncie, Ind., to Chicago. They don't tell you that Thompson and his attorney allege the violation of federal civil rights laws, state civil rights laws and the school's own equal employment opportunity policies. And they certainly don't tell you that Thompson, at the insistence of his suspicious pop, Big John, kept a detailed diary of every meeting and phone call, with quotes, notes, times and supporting e-mails. He has photos, tape recordings and memos that he shared on a recent afternoon while telling his story.
5 comments:
The absolute last place I want to see Ronny is on the Georgetown bench this season. We do not need this drama spilling over to our program.
I think what Ronny T. went through in Indiana is much more serious than "this drama" spilling over to the Hoya program. Let's be serious. If Wilbon's article is correct - and, since the interview was conducted with Thompson's Patton-Boggs attorney, I suspect it is - then what Thompson went through is a horrendous tale of how racism still serves to remind people of color what 'their place' is in society (generally) and in college sports (particularly).
Gentleman- I assume you are aware of the racism with Georgetown's b-ball team. How can a program in the nation's capital continue to practice overtly racist policies on whom they recruit? I would ove to hear an explanation.
Overt racism in the nation's capital that our liberal media deliberately overlooks. Sickening.
Overt rasicm in the nation's capital that the liberal media overlooks. Sickening.
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