What I'm wondering is what happens if the independent investigation comes back with substantive findings that Harvard cannot look away from without risking some type of action, legal or otherwise. Will there be moves made within the Athletic Department (I'm thinking McDermott) to either dismiss or suspend certain individuals? Harvard's Administration and culture are so ingrained in doing things a certain way based on how they have always acted in the past that I really doubt much will change beyond removing Stone and her staff. Which is a shame because it seems clear that significant changes need to be made to bring the University into the 21st century.
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Harvard 2022-23: What's Up?
- Thread starter thirdtime's . . .
- Start date
What I'm wondering is what happens if the independent investigation comes back with substantive findings that Harvard cannot look away from without risking some type of action, legal or otherwise. Will there be moves made within the Athletic Department (I'm thinking McDermott) to either dismiss or suspend certain individuals? Harvard's Administration and culture are so ingrained in doing things a certain way based on how they have always acted in the past that I really doubt much will change beyond removing Stone and her staff. Which is a shame because it seems clear that significant changes need to be made to bring the University into the 21st century.
This is where context matters. Had this Chiefs/Indians comment been made in a room full of white players, it probably wouldn't have drawn any attention at all BUT, it was made with two indigenous players in the locker room, and a third who was an assistant coach at the time, and directly pointed at one of them, an up and coming junior who because of her year was in the mix for a C the following year. This was a "put her in her place" kind of comment. The self reporting, and subsequent apology was when she realized she went to far (obviously) and the apology we keep reading about was never made in person to any of the 3 indigenous players. Kind of takes on a different tone when you know how it went down.
If someone in the department has to take the fall, I wonder if they would pin blame on the associate AD who is "sport supervisor for women's hockey" rather than (or in addition to) the AD. That's purely speculative, and I have no idea exactly how much the associate AD is to blame. But the job title clearly suggests some responsibility.
If McDermott, Harvard's first female AD, is forced out over defending Stone after only a couple years, I think they'd both push a sexism narrative and lawsuit, regardless of the case against them. Stone of course knows how Shannon Miller went out and eventually won a lawsuit, however different the situations may be. Stone also feels entitled to stay, obviously, and I would expect she strongly believes the women coaches who grew the sport have been treated unfairly —I haven't spoken with her in 15 years, but that's a well-informed guess. Of course the counterpoint, expressed often here on this forum, is that she needed to evolve.
To be clear, the feelings of Stone or ADs are not what's important here, compared to any alums who may have really been hurt, but I am forecasting how this all might proceed.
ARM
Fan of chipmunk-like mascots.
Much of the reason why I don't think Stone will survive this is because I don't see how she can get her team back to competing for championships after this. The most recent season wasn't good, and Harvard recently had a season where it didn't make the postseason at all. Now that this is more out in the open, recruiting will become more difficult. Even if one agrees that she hasn't done anything that would be cause for dismissal, I think she winds up out the door in the same way that many other coaches do once their programs are in decline. Coaches don't have much legal footing when the reason for termination is failure to reach the desired level of competitiveness.
I don't see anything that would be cause for shutting down a program or dismissing an AD. There just isn't enough importance placed on women's hockey programs to threaten an AD, unless we're talking matters of death or dismemberment.
I don't see anything that would be cause for shutting down a program or dismissing an AD. There just isn't enough importance placed on women's hockey programs to threaten an AD, unless we're talking matters of death or dismemberment.
Totally. The team was 7-21-3 this season. With the graduations of their top 2 forwards and a D, along with this year's freshman defections, they are now losing 47% of their scoring, which was already weak relative to ECAC competitors. Further, there are surprisingly only 2 total Harvard commitments on the list for the next 2 seasons to replace them, 1 of which is taking a gap year next year. So it does appear that performance will continue to decline significantly for the next 2 seasons. Players who have never had much ice time or made much contribution to the scoresheet will be the ones who will have to get it done. But it gets worse. Now is when recruiting of the 2007s (incoming class of 2025-26) is happening, along with filling any remaining Class of 2024-25 gaps. April to September is always the prime recruiting season to evaluate talent: Nationals, Provincials, League Championships, High Performance Selection Camps, Summer Showcases, through to Stoney Creek Showcase in Ontario et al after Labour Day. And who is the one responsible for all that recruiting? The Associate Coach who has suddenly gone on a leave of absence!! Now MIA, Harvard will be at a huge disadvantage vs other programs in recruiting in 2025-26, even moreso than in the next 2 years.
This will be a monumental challenge for any coach, and best suited to a coach with experience and a track record in building/rebuilding programs. Who in their right mind could conclude that a coach..
(1) with a record of 77-94-17 over the past 6 years, despite great resources
(2) who has had 17 student-athletes leave the program over the last 4 years alone,
(2) who has shown a total unwillingness to evolve in any way over time, despite these failures, and
(4) who is now under the public spotlight for having rock bottom student satisfaction scores, with associated allegations in media outlets of a toxic culture, and abusive fear-driven coaching practices
...is in any way a potential fit for being successful in that turnaround task?
You definitely don't need a Harvard degree to easily reach the conclusion that Stone has to go immediately, even if you happened to be personally skeptical of the accuracy or extent of some of the allegations. There's no upside whatsoever for Harvard to do otherwise.
This isn't just a women's hockey problem. It's systemic within Harvard Athletics.
This week in The Harvard Crimson: Eighth Major Review of Harvard Athletic Department since 2016
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2...views-feature/
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A program shutdown would be entirely unmerited punishment of the athletes. Shutdowns happen when the athletes are at major fault. There's a recent example of this where Harvard cancelled a men's soccer season nearing its conclusion and to put the women's hockey athletes in this ballpark is tremendously unfair. It would effectively be placing equal blame on the athletes for the "hazing" and "culture", when the primary issues here clearly concern the coach and the administration. If we go by the stat that 74% of athletes haze by some definition, that's probably >30 other Harvard teams that should be shut down too by this criteria. Only difference here is that some players were willing to tell all and put everything in the worst possible context because they wanted to throw everything they could at Coach Stone.
Regarding why any AD's job would be at all at risk, yes, it is unusual that women's hockey would be so important. But here you have a case where the AD was just so remarkably tone-deaf in how she responded to the investigation at the end of last season, that I judge she was at fault for letting this situation spiral out of control. A wiser AD would have done better to manage the situation and at least make sure the players felt heard and had Coach Stone face any consequences at all, even if the AD's intent was always going to be to keep Coach Stone. Some are going to tell me that aggrieved players would not have been satisfied with anything short of Coach Stone's termination, but I don't believe it. There was surely a better middle ground here that wouldn't have resulted in everything blowing up out in the open like this. (And I don't mean to turn this point into another debate about the merits of keeping Coach Stone.) The cheerleading at the end of her team email announcing the investigation outcome was truly the height of the tone-deafness. The AD clearly was not listening to anything and nothing was going to change, so it's no surprise then that there were immediate transfers and so many coordinated on "airing their dirty laundry" to the media without restraint. Now we have the worst press for Harvard Athletics since this men's soccer incident.
Regarding why any AD's job would be at all at risk, yes, it is unusual that women's hockey would be so important. But here you have a case where the AD was just so remarkably tone-deaf in how she responded to the investigation at the end of last season, that I judge she was at fault for letting this situation spiral out of control. A wiser AD would have done better to manage the situation and at least make sure the players felt heard and had Coach Stone face any consequences at all, even if the AD's intent was always going to be to keep Coach Stone. Some are going to tell me that aggrieved players would not have been satisfied with anything short of Coach Stone's termination, but I don't believe it. There was surely a better middle ground here that wouldn't have resulted in everything blowing up out in the open like this. (And I don't mean to turn this point into another debate about the merits of keeping Coach Stone.) The cheerleading at the end of her team email announcing the investigation outcome was truly the height of the tone-deafness. The AD clearly was not listening to anything and nothing was going to change, so it's no surprise then that there were immediate transfers and so many coordinated on "airing their dirty laundry" to the media without restraint. Now we have the worst press for Harvard Athletics since this men's soccer incident.
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After reading that crimson article you have to wonder why the ivies play D1 athletics at all. I know this is beyond the scope of what is happening at Harvard women's hockey, but at some point, when does the 'harm' created by trying to compete at the D1 level outweigh the "good". I've read that around 15% of the ivy incoming classes are recruited athletes, of which I would guess 99.99% would not make it through normal admissions. It seems to create a real disconnect in the ivy mission. Couple that with 'entitled' coaches, recruiting scandals (Yale), pressure on the athletes to train at the D1 level while taking 'real' class workloads, it just seems so disconnected in the modern sports era. Peer schools like MIT, CalTech, University of Chicago, Middlebury, (and I am sure a few others - sorry if I missed your favorite school) compete at the D3 level to keep their academic integrity in check. Other peer schools like Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt are all P5 schools and get significant revenue from their conferences. Only other non-ivy peer school in a similar situation I can think of is Rice and I've read in the past they have seriously considered dropping football, dropping out of D1, etc. When do the ivies just punt on this whole "major" athletic thing and go D3?
What?!? You mean doing away with The Game, that most sacred of Harvard traditions?!?
Many years ago I read a book on Ivy Admissions that suggested that one of the key covert roles of Ivy Sports was to ensure privileged white families stayed in the majority, and providing a key means for them to prevail in the admissions process, rather than having to qualify solely through purely merit-based means (ie. highest SAT scores). (To digress briefly, the fact that it remains harder for Asians to gain Ivy admission in the process since higher SAT scores are required for them, is another policy to help maintain such "historic Ivy traditions". There were a number of policies in the Ivys that were put in place to protect the elite white majority, even for a long time deliberately keeping Jewish numbers low.)
The book noted that as a result. a very high proportion of the sports offered were ones which heavily skew to wealthy/waspy white elites (eg. rowing, sailing, skiing, tennis, golf, water polo, fencing, field hockey, ice hockey, lacrosse etc....all heavily played in the East Coast prep schools). This is no coincidence.
Further, it suggested that since most of the sports offered catered primarily to wealthy white families, with the means to invest in the "development of their children" through the best trainers, coaches, etc in high school to become "the best of the best athletically", the families were also disproportionately among those in student population who paid "full-freight", funding the ability to offer financial aid to all the brilliant-but-poor students who would otherwise not be able to afford an Ivy education.
Of course, not only do the athletes' families disproportionately pay the full sticker price, but in addition, alumni boosters of Athletics Programs are another significant source of donations for the athletic programs and the university as a whole. It is a fact that former athletes are among the universitys' most prolific donors later in life.
In other words, as always, follow the money.
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Trillium - again your insight is very enlightening. I had always been impressed with the number of varsity sports the ivies sponsor (equestrian..) and always heard that one reason why they could sponsor so many was that they did not offer schollys so freed up money. But being the naive fool that I am, I never took it the extra step and considered it was a money spigot for the schools. I knew of one player who came from a very wealthy family who was border-line D1. A 'better' player on the club team but not one of the top. Was recruited and went to an ivy. Some of the parents were a bit surprised that a good but not one of the top club players was going D1 while some of the better players were not even being considered anywhere. Had heard that a donation was involved, nothing ever explicit and I took as just jealous comments from other parents but now who knows. Nothing as explicitly 'wrong' as say what the Yale soccer coach did but very much in a grey area at best. It really does put in perspective the ideals espoused by these 'elite' schools and reality. State U and ACHA hockey suddenly has a lot of appeal....
This is the book I read on Ivy recruiting, back in 2004: Playing the Game: Inside Athletic Recruiting in the Ivy League
Some economists I know tried to estimate exactly what share of students with some special admissions status (largely made up of recruited athletes) would not have been admitted under the regular process. Their answer is 75%, which I guess is more favorable finding to the athletes than the number just thrown out of 99.99%! This is the ungated version of the paper that has been published in the Journal of Labor Economics: https://tyleransom.github.io/research/legacyathlete.pdf The data was available because Harvard had to reveal a lot of its admissions data publicly due to the recent lawsuit alleging Asian-American discrimination.
Some economists I know tried to estimate exactly what share of students with some special admissions status (largely made up of recruited athletes) would not have been admitted under the regular process. Their answer is 75%, which I guess is more favorable finding to the athletes than the number just thrown out of 99.99%! This is the ungated version of the paper that has been published in the Journal of Labor Economics: https://tyleransom.github.io/research/legacyathlete.pdf The data was available because Harvard had to reveal a lot of its admissions data publicly due to the recent lawsuit alleging Asian-American discrimination.
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From the story, the Women's Cross Country coach stepped down based on allegations and complaints that draw a parallel to Coach Stone's current situation. So, it isn't unreasonable to assume that Harvard can point to the Women's CC investigation as a basis for terminating Coach Stone if she again refuses to accept a buyout or 'retirement' package.
Not to go off topic but this is an interesting take. The football program plays in D-1AA which is several levels below the D-1 power conferences. This will not change and because there are plenty of schools such as Holy Cross and Lafayette that are on a similar level, the Crimson can be competitive w/o sacrificing academics in favor of a rigorous commitment to football activities.
Hockey is a different matter because the men and women play schools from Hockey East and the West where those schools offer athletic scholarships and have lower academic standards (Michigan excepted). In order for men's coach Ted Donato to field a competitive hockey team and match up with BC, BU, Michigan or Northeastern, he has to recruit players who are highly sought after by NHL teams (to wit: Sean Farrell, Matthew Coronato and Alex Laferriere, their three best forwards left early to sign with NHL teams this week). The admissions office is dead set on turning the school into a hockey factory where one and done or two and done is the norm. But given the amount of money being thrown around at athletes via NIL and the D-1 pressure to win now, Harvard may have to consider how long it wants to 'play this game' and look the other way when it comes to academics over athletics.
Abra's recent social media posts, communicating the feedback that she received from the investigators, are more insightful than any of the recent reporting by The Globe or The Athletic or The Crimson on the investigation.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CqWxiupLL9W/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
https://www.instagram.com/p/CqWxiupLL9W/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
I do think it's plausible that the investigation will find that some players have been left hurt by the present system, that not enough has been done to prevent or care for that hurt, and this finding will be made public. That would be a fair outcome.
The cynical forecast, like I posted earlier, is that Harvard will narrowly focus public release of findings on hazing and racism, argue that despite missteps proper procedures were followed by the coaching staff and administrators, and continue to obscure and dodge major concerns or consequences.
The cynical forecast, like I posted earlier, is that Harvard will narrowly focus public release of findings on hazing and racism, argue that despite missteps proper procedures were followed by the coaching staff and administrators, and continue to obscure and dodge major concerns or consequences.
I hadn't specifically picked up the similarities to the Women's CC case...just the high number of Athletics investigations in recent years that points to a systemic problem in Harvard Athletics Administration.
After you pointed out that case, I dug deeper. You are right, the parallels are striking. In both cases
* a divided team, with a polarizing coaching style: some athletes praised the coach, others reported a toxic environment
* a striking number of women leaving the program over a period of years
* some of the most successful athletes experienced a supportive coach, others were treated poorly and were degraded, shamed, or basically ignored
* criticism of weight and encouragement of unhealthy eating habits which resulted in eating disorders; athletes publicly berated for food choices
* athletes pressured to perform despite injuries, and an unusually high number of injuries
* fear of retaliation for raising concerns
* athletes who raised concerns were told they were the problem because they didn't buy in
* complaints to various administration officials by numerous athletes over extended periods of time were totally ignored, until those complaints were published by the media
* both coaches had achieved Ivy Coach of the Year Honors, and had achieved high levels of results success at Harvard.
What is different about the two cases, is that the CC coach was achieving unprecedented success with the program at the time the investigation was commenced. Stone has not been successful for quite a long time. On the other hand, he had only been with the CC program for 3 years, while she has deeply embedded herself in the Harvard ecosystem over decades. Another difference is that, in the CC case, it was a Volunteer Assistant Coach who spoke out directly in the media. This clearly carried a lot of weight in the process of prompting an investigation.
What is very disturbing about how the CC situation was handled is:
* despite being keenly aware of the issues, no one in the administration who had been made aware of the problems by multiple athletes over multiple years took any actions whatsoever until complaints hit the media
* the results of the resulting investigation on culture were never made public
* the coach was allowed to quietly resign and resume his career elsewhere, presumably prolonging the problems with another group of athletes. It came to light that similar issues had occurred in prior programs he had been associated with. This suggests that either (1) there is poor vetting in the hiring process at Harvard, or (2) the administration itself actually sees no issues with this behavior
* there were no steps taken as a result of the investigation (or any the other 7 investigations) to examine to what extent such issues may be more systemic, and take any proactive corrective action to make changes across other athletic programs, or within the administration to ensure they did not recur
* the Director of Track & Field, to whom the CC coach reported, was also implicated in many of the issues. He remains in his position at Harvard 6 years later. Some feel that the CC coach was made a scapegoat, while there were no apparent consequences for the long time Head Coach of the entire program.
* CC athletes who had reported issues to the Assistant AD, supposedly in confidence, found that their concerns as well as their identities were reported back to the program coaches, resulting in further negative consequences. This is the same Assistant AD who was involved with the women's hockey program. No wonder athletes don't speak out.
It's really hard to be optimistic given all that. I think Harvard's probably a lost cause. Now that it's public, they'll have to find a scapegoat. Lee J? Is that why she's on leave? Maybe all the HH coaches are done, but moreso because the writing's on the wall about the prospects of the program further going downhill in performance, than addressing the root cause. Stone will doubtlessly be given a parade and a big fuss for appearances sake along with any decision to retire. Because with Harvard, the only thing that matters more than money, is appearances.
They have their heads so far up their behinds, there is next to no chance they will see they are in any way culpable, and the same harm will come to other Harvard Athletics teams' athletes. How many reviews will it take to get at the rot in the administration? 10? 20? Ever?
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Timothy A
Let's go RED!
Regardless of the merits of the arguments to move on from Katey Stone, it's not like this is totally unfathomable decision-making for Harvard to have stuck with Stone this long , and we need to act totally baffled by it, or (like the Athletic podcast) come up with theories that all-powerful women's hockey alumni are some kind of illuminanti pulling all the strings.
it's not complicated. Katey Stone still was the 2014 Olympic coach and coached Harvard to the 2015 NCAA final. The associate AD supervising women's hockey joined the department in 2013, and others go back as long. Given that, plus her longer history, It's not so shocking the department gave her a lot of deference and focuses energy elsewhere, leaving minimal oversight and offering her a lot of leeway to fail. And from the perspective of the evaluation in 2021-22, her team's struggled, then made it back to the NCAA tournament. Plus the AD also seems to have believed in the power of a cheery email to prevent the ugly end to that season from spilling over to the next season.
I'm not trying to argue any of that's right — but it's not like it's hard to understand any of it.
it's not complicated. Katey Stone still was the 2014 Olympic coach and coached Harvard to the 2015 NCAA final. The associate AD supervising women's hockey joined the department in 2013, and others go back as long. Given that, plus her longer history, It's not so shocking the department gave her a lot of deference and focuses energy elsewhere, leaving minimal oversight and offering her a lot of leeway to fail. And from the perspective of the evaluation in 2021-22, her team's struggled, then made it back to the NCAA tournament. Plus the AD also seems to have believed in the power of a cheery email to prevent the ugly end to that season from spilling over to the next season.
I'm not trying to argue any of that's right — but it's not like it's hard to understand any of it.
Curious about the paragraph in the post on rules for Harvard employees and 'consequences' based on findings. My immediate thought was whether or not they will be interviewing Mirasolo as she has taken a leave of absence. Is she required when on leave to speak to the firm? What about the doctors and athletic trainers? What about former employees such as Syd Daniels who was an assistant coach (there might be a problem there given her complaint filed against Harvard)? More questions than answers.
dave3803083 said:
I'm having a hard time understanding how with so many investigations over the past eight years that Harvard would turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the problems with the women's hockey program. Putting Stone's record over the past seven years aside, to simply sweep this under the rug knowing what you've dealt with as a university during these past few years, why on earth would you invite more scrutiny and negative press?? As Trillium suggests, how many more investigations and incidents will it take for Harvard to wake up and clean house in the Athletic Department? With no recruits to speak of and no recruiting taking place until this mess gets resolved, the Crimson will be basement dwellers for a number of years unless they act quickly and decisively.