By now, the facts as we know them are out on Bobby Petrino: One of the most successful coaches in Arkansas football history is caught in a self-inflicted shit-storm that he’s going to have a hard time getting out of.
What we know is this: Bobby Petrino got in a motorcycle accident. Bobby Petrino told his superiors (who in turn, told the world) that no one else was involved in the accident. Bobby Petrino lied. To make matters worse, the person on the bike with him, was an employee of Arkansas’ football program, who was just hired last week. Petrino admitted a pre-existing relationship between the two. There is a lot to presume here, and to his credit Arkansas AD Jeff Long got out ahead of the story. Petrino is on paid, administrative leave.
The simple question, if you’re Jeff Long, what do you do?
Aaron Torres: To me, it’s simply impossible to say what you can and cannot do right now. The facts alone are enough to fire Petrino, especially when you look over his contract and realize that you can do it with cause. If you keep him, you’re opening up a whole other can of worms in and of itself. Think the folks who didn’t get Jessica Dorrell’s job won’t be pissed? Think they won’t think about suing?
To me though, I still think we need all the facts. I’m no lawyer, but did talk to a friend who is, and he agreed with my sentiment for the most part that its going to be tough to prove in a court of law that Dorrell was hired for this job solely because she was Bobby Petrino’s (alleged) mistress. This was a publicly posted job, and she had been in the department for three years. There’s a very likely chance that regardless of her relationship, she was in fact the most qualified person for this position.
Which is why if you’re Long, I think the question isn’t “What do you do with Bobby Petrino?” It is, however, “What do you do with Jessica Dorrell?” Again, I’m no lawyer. And again, I’m working under the VERY BIG presumption that no more facts come out than what we already know.
I know I’m in the HUGE minority here. But my best guess is that Bobby Petrino coaches football at Arkansas in the future. Maybe not the immediate future, but in the future nonetheless. As for Jessica Dorrell, and potentially her fiancee? Their future involves the words, “Settled out of court.” Again, I know I’m in the minority. That is, however, my belief. Now boys, tell me why I’m dead wrong.
Allen Kenney: Since the question is what I’d do if I’m Jeff Long, not a prediction on what will happen, I’m firing Petrino yesterday.
I’m firing him because I’m his boss and he lied to me.
Let me re-phrase that: I’m firing him because I’m his boss and he had the audacity to lie to me about a piece of information that was undoubtedly going to come out in a police report.
Wait, no: I’m firing him because I’m his boss and he had the audactity to lie to me about a piece of information that was undoubtedly going to come out in a police report about his side salad – the one he just promoted to a job underneath him in the football program. Oh, and he made me look like an ass in the public in the process.
I could also build a compelling case from the standpoint of the school’s risk exposure in keeping him if I wanted to, but why waste your time? If I’m Jeff Long, I’m canning Petrino and resigning if not allowed to do so.
Aaron: Oh, come on, AK. There are plenty of reasons to fire Bobby Petrino in the here and now, or even yesterday. But “the my feelings were hurt” logic? Just stop.
And if you are firing him solely because he lied to you, then what? You planted your flag in the ground, and took your stand. You WILL NOT be lied to. Congratulations.
Of course, what happens when the interim coach goes 5-7 next year? What happens when the next guy you hires goes 6-6 the year? What happens when you’re looking for another job because of it?
Look, if you want to fire Petrino for legal reasons, I can ride with that. Ethical ones? Sure. Embarrassing the university as a whole, ok. But you don’t get to Jeff Long’s position in life without realizing that certain people, certain coaches, certain employees get longer leashes than others. That’s a sad reality and one that all of us might not be totally comfortable admitting. But it is a reality none the less.
Kevin McGuire: I have been trying to refrain from jumping to quick responses on this topic, because there is still some information that will certainly come out about all of this, but if I am the athletic director and I stick my neck out for the head coach after initially getting his take on things, only to find out I’m thrown in a position to hold a press conference just minutes before the ten o’clock news because I’ve been shown to be inaccurate, that changes things. It especially looks bad when Petrino hired the alleged mistress under my watch. That’s just not cool, no matter how you look at it. From the AD’s position, something has to be done, and something must be done.
But is firing Petrino the correct course of action? I certainly will not make an argument against firing him, given what we know at this point. It would be a totally understandable decision to be enforced. But there is something else Long needs to take in to consideration, and that is the overall outlook of the football, and athletics, program. This does reflect poorly on Arkansas, as a football program and university (whether that is right or wrong), but can a suspension be a justified and appropriate punishment? We are not in a position where Arkansas’ football program was doing anything wrong on the field, right? This is not something Arkansas would have to serve any form of NCAA penalty for, is it?
If I am Jeff Long, then I probably do what he is doing right now. I place Petrino on administrative leave and continue to evaluate the situation a little deeper until I feel I have enough information to decide if Petrino is a man I can once again trust to lead my football program, with a little more supervision moving forward. If I determine that the best course of action is to cut ties with Petrino, then I’m calling up Jerry Jones and seeing who he has in mind.
Getting back to the point, it all comes back to wins over morals. Doesn’t it? First of all, speculating that an interim coach will go 5-7 or 6-6 is just that, speculation. Who is to say the interim coach doesn’t win the SEC title and takes Arkansas to a BCS championship? What do you do THEN? It is easy for us to sit at our keyboards and say that Jeff Long needs to take the Roger Goodell path and punish a guy who scorned him through lies, taking a stand for morals in collegiate athletics. But really, what is so wrong with that? The athletics director is in a position to make decisions that will do two things:
1. Generate money for the university.
2. Build winning programs.
Does firing Bobby Petrino really prevent Arkansas from doing either of those in the long run? That is a question Long needs to review as thoroughly as possible.
Michael Felder: Allen beat me to the punch. I’m firing him. Right now, I’m on the phone making calls to figure out who we can get right now and evaluating my staff to see if I have a legitimate candidate in house. Then I’ll make the move once I’ve got a name and an agreement in principle. This whole wait-and-see thing just is not going to work.
Best case scenario we just find out the guy was sleeping around with an employee of the Razorback Foundation. Even if that’s the bare bones of the problem, you’re still dealing with a guy that straight out lied to his employer. And that’s just the bare minimum, because as this case wears on and we witness the wait-and-see approach, the media is going to camp out on this course. Drag you through the mud, expose every detail and then you’re still battling to protect a coach who lied to you.
I’m just not okay with being lied to by an employee. I’m especially not okay with being lied to and then having a massive shit storm rain down on me. Petrino has screwed up, plain and simple, and this time if I’m the AD, it would cost him his job.
Aaron: It doesn’t come down to wins over morals. It comes down to exactly what you said, Kevin: This isn’t about Jeff Long’s ego. It’s about appeasing the fans that pay his checks and the athletic department’s. While we’re here, I want one quick thing answered for me.
Everyone keeps working under the presumption that “Petrino hired his mistress.” Can someone explain to me, how or why that is? Is this not a public university that by law has to post all their jobs? And since when is Petrino the be-all, end-all dictator in the Arkansas athletic department. You don’t think other people interviewed her? You dont think other people had a say in her hiring? And it goes back again to what I said before: This is a woman who worked for the university for three years before getting promoted last week. Regardless of her relationship, there’s a very real chance she was the most qualified person for this position.
And I still think where Long’s dilemma lies, isn’t with Petrino but with Jessica Dorrell. What do you do with her? You can’t fire her, for risk she runs her mouth. You can’t keep her where she is, because that’s just totally weird. You can’t reassign her because that’s just shady. Which brings me back to my original point: The words “out of court settlement” are in her immediate future, regardless of what happens with Petrino.
Dave Singleton: No, I don’t think other people would necessarily have had a say in her hiring. I don’t think she would necessarily have been interviewed by anyone else, either.
Yes, while the University of Arkansas is a public institution, and they might have had to post her job, that doesn’t mean that: a) it was posted publicly (it could have been for internal candidates only); or b) it was posted at all.
Because, to be frank and fair, quite often, the two biggest jobs in an athletic department (head football coach, head men’s basketball coach) often are never posted, especially at BCS AQ schools. They just don’t follow the normal standard operation procedure for a higher education hiring. There are no basic jobs in higher education where you can fill it in a week. Not across most of the rest of the instiution; jobs for university administrators, especially high level ones, normally take anywhere from six to 18 months to fill. Jobs like the one Ms. Dorrell has would normally be a two- to three-month search.
Even assuming that the job was posted and protocol was followed, it explicitly states in the AP wire copy that she was hired by Petrino. Not by Arkansas’s athletic department. That could be shading the story, but I usually trust AP copy. It could be a misunderstanding of the process of how hiring works. But I can only go on the information as I see it written, and the fact that while she may have been the most qualified, it doesn’t contradict the fact that the woman whom Bobby Petrino has admitted to having an inappropriate relationship with in some form was hired to work under him (no pun intended) with Arkansas football.
If I were Jeff Long? I’d put Petrino on leave immediately and call a meeting with H.R. and University Counsel to go through Bobby’s contract with a fine-toothed comb to see how do we get out of his $18 million buyout. Find a way to terminate him with cause. To me it is a trust issue. I need to know I can trust you to tell me the truth, even if it is ugly. Because if you will lie about this, then what else are you/do you have the potential to cover up?
Allen: Aaron, you’re conflating “hurt feelings” and “ego” with the ability to effectively run an athletic department. This isn’t an employee lying about being sick to go play golf. We’re talking about a situation in which Petrino blatantly lied to his superiors about an incident that has brought – and I’m putting this mildly – public scrutiny on the university.
Had he been forthright from the beginning, it would have at least put Long and the rest of the school in the position of getting out ahead of the scandal and being prepared. They could have been ready to answer questions about how qualified Dorrell was for the job she had. Now, the whole thing just looks incredibly shady, legal questions aside. The school, let alone the athletic director, has to be able to trust that employees will be straight up about issues of this magnitude, no matter their position within the food chain.
Administrators simply can’t do their jobs otherwise. If the boosters think it’s worth keeping Petrino, that’s their call. But for Long, there should be a line in the sand.
Aaron: Dave, that’s an incredibly detailed, well-reasoned out, logical answer to my question.
To play devil’s advocate, here’s my follow-up: As you said, a lot of jobs at public universities and in athletics departments post jobs internally first, before they make a public posting at all. Having worked at the university for three plus years (following four years as a student-athlete) where she very clearly had built relationships not only with staff members, but also high-ranking boosters (as part of the development staff), Dorrell was clearly qualified for the position she was hired for. Outside of a testimony from Dorrell, Petrino or one of Petrino’s superiors, how can anyone prove that she was hired solely because of her relationship with Petrino?
Now, please note that I understand that at some point, this whole thing becomes more of a headache than it’s worth, and that at some point it’s easier to just cut bait with Petrino, if and when you can find cause to fire him. But I guess that’s my fundamental question: How do we prove that her hiring was Petrino’s decision alone? But more importantly, how do we prove that her hiring was Petrino’s decision solely because she was his (alleged) mistress?
Michael: You realize she was a co-worker in a bit of a subordinate position prior to her hiring in the direct subordinate role in the last week? Like, she was already working for the Razorbacks Foundation prior to her football role. That’s how they met.
Aaron: Yes, I do, and that’s my point. Bobby Petrino didn’t hire her four years ago. And my guess is that if/when she applied for the job (assuming that there was a posting for the position) that she had the support of the ENTIRE athletics department. Not just the guy who’s hog she was riding (pun most definitely intended).
Dave: It’s hard to answer either question because of some of the protection given to human resources records from an institutional perspective. Based on her experience not just in the department already but also as a student athlete, and without seeing the job description, it does seem like she would be qualified for the position.
I do think her getting the job is not really the issue, though. The can of worms that could be opened up is more about the fact that she was an employee (we presume) having an affair with her supervisor (either direct or indirect), and getting caught up in the fact that the supervisor didn’t disclose to HIS supervisor that said employee was with him at the time of said accident. To me, this story is about Petrino and the crap that he did and her status as his employee. How she got to be his employee, to me, is somewhat inconsequential.
Michael: Thank you, Dave. The relationship is the issue. The whole employer-subordinate is the harassment issue here. It is in UA’s handbook. They make a clear mention of both student-professor and subordinate-superior relationships in the same section – the conflict of interest involved with the relationships even existing in the first place and it details the discouraging of such dealings.
Aaron: We’re getting caught up in a lot ifs, ands and maybes. Here’s my final response. To answer the original question: If I’m Jeff Long, and there’s any way to legally keep Petrino, I am. All the facts aren’t in. Nothing is final. But this isn’t about me getting lied to by one of my subordinates. This is about me doing what’s best for the University of Arkansas, the athletics program and, selfishly, my own best interests.
My first plan of action: Find out what the price is to keep Dorrell’s mouth shut, and get her to go away for good. My second agenda item is find out what the price is to get Dorrell’s fiancee to keep his mouth shut and go away for good. Third is to find out if those prices make it financially worthwhile to keep Petrino around. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t.
But at the end of the day, this isn’t about liking Petrino or trusting him. This is about winning football games. He does plenty of that. And whether we want to admit to it or not, if we never hear a peep from Dorrell or her fiancé again, this is all forgotten one year from now. If you fire Petrino, well, it’ll only be beginning one year from now.
