Cracks revealed in solid program
COMMENTARY University Sports
KEVIN MITCHELL
Things seemed so pretty and pristine atop the powder keg.
Flowers bloomed, championships blossomed, banners accumulated.
The University of Saskatchewan Huskies had it all, it seemed: Success, good looks, and — surprise — a toxic work environment, big deficit and wobbly infrastructure.
The latter three items, outlined during a painful external review that was released Tuesday, have been talked about for years — sometimes whispered, sometimes shouted, but always there.
Those close to the scene knew Huskie Athletics carried an ugly side, despite the repeated green-clad celebrations on courts and fields across Canada.
Athletic director Ross Wilson doesn’t get along with the coaches he oversees. He alienates alumni. He receives minimal funding and is forced to guard whatever cash trickles into the PAC like a grumpy guard dog. The situation is almost impossible. The U of S, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to have a clue what to do with Huskie Athletics. They look at it with equal parts horror and fascination, unwilling to commit to a whole array of scenarios. Chop programs? Keep them around? Build a hockey rink? Questions, questions, questions. So the program unravels in small steps. Coaches slave over hot corporate wallets, trying to prop up their teams with whatever cash they can collect. People question why football crowds that look like 4,000 are announced at 2,700. Are attendances getting shortchanged? Is there a built-in optical illusion at Griffiths Stadium? Who can say? Stories about the Huskies’ penny pinching ways are told across the country.
The U of S sports information director doesn’t have a cellphone, for example. The thing costs money. Never mind that it would help her impart, you know, sports information.
She didn’t go to Edmonton when the Huskie men’s hockey team played at the national championships — making the U of S the only one of six schools not to send an SID.
The embarrassment compounded itself when the communications guy at host Alberta called the University of Regina’s SID and gave him enough incentives to travel to Edmonton and handle the Huskies’ duties.
A U of R guy, handling media and public relations for the U of S, because they couldn’t afford a trip to Edmonton. It was a real nice touch.
The football team is one of the classiest in the country, but try getting a list of, say, the top-20 career passers. It’s not possible, because nobody seems to know.
Whole chunks of Huskie history have been lost, but can be recovered with a few dollars and a determined search through the archives. The will to do it isn’t there, though. Not when they’re just trying to survive.
These stories abound — not the big things, but the little things, trickling down in a steady and annoying dripdrip-drip.
U of S president Peter MacKinnon deserves credit for opening the review process to the public; for agreeing to place the entire document on the school’s website.
There’s hope in this public airing — the possibility that by dealing with it in an open and transparent manner, good things will happen. It’s better than rumour and innuendo; quiet grumblings and bitter grudges.
It’s anybody’s guess whether changes occur, however, and in what form. Is the will there? We know what the big problems are doing to Huskie Athletics, but they could just as easily topple under the weight of all those little things that continue to pile up.
The Huskies, perhaps by necessity, are so consumed with staying afloat in difficult circumstances that they haven’t paid attention to the drips that crept into Tuesday’s document.
It reminds us of a parched man crawling through a hot desert: He’s not going to stop for a quick game of Scrabble. kmitchell@sp.canwest.com
