Title IX legislation almost a generation ago gave long overdue athletics opportunities to women as players. But after seeing the cavalier way the current Oregon women’s basketball coach, Jody Runge, has been treated by University administrators, maybe similar legislation is needed to assure a fair shake for women coaches.
By any yardstick of wins and losses, coach Runge has been a roaring success. The victory over Oregon State in the game that closed the regular season marked her 100th Pacific-10 Conference triumph, a feat achieved by only two other coaches in the league. Her teams have earned eight straight NCAA-tourney appearances and have won almost 70 percent of their games (160-72).
There is another side to the question that has left Runge’s position in jeopardy. Eight of her players (unnamed) met with Athletic Director Bill Moos to complain about Runge’s coaching style. Maybe their charges justify Runge being fired. I have not heard them and am in no position to judge.
What I do know suggests a male coach in a similar situation would get different treatment while the “jury is out.” A director would postpone other commitments, such as the fund-raising trip that had Moos in Palm Springs, Calif., the entire week after the meeting with players.
Equally disturbing is the stance taken by The Register-Guard sports columnist Ron Bellamy, which has stirred enough community reaction that executive editor Jim Godbold devoted a Sunday column to it. It is reassuring to know Godbold gives complete independence to columnists, such as Bellamy, whose writing on Runge stirred anger among many readers. But I wonder if Bellamy’s deserved independence on the staff is matched by independence from the big player on his beat — Oregon varsity athletics.
I ask because the day after the paper reported the player meeting with Moos, Bellamy’s column announced: “It’s over. She’s gone.” For me, it had a familiar ring. The week before Runge’s predecessor, Elwin Heiny, was fired by then athletic director/football coach Rich Brooks, Bellamy’s column said it was time for Heiny to be replaced.
Discomforting as it sometimes might be, a columnist has that privilege. But I wondered about the coincidence. My guess is the writer might have been asked by both directors to grease the skids for controversial actions they were planning.
Sound like paranoia? Maybe. But my experience when I became Oregon sports information director 25 years ago feeds suspicions. At the time, The Register-Guard still was an afternoon paper. The sports editor/columnist, Blaine Newnham, made an understandable pitch: Would I arrange to release all significant announcements for p.m. deadlines? I may have been new, but I knew that would not be welcomed by George Pasero, sports editor of The Oregonian, nor by the Oregon Daily Emerald, both morning papers. I also knew it was unfair. I told him my policy was to alternate major announcements between morning and evening deadlines.
That didn’t disturb Newnham. He continued to get early alerts on stories from an assistant athletic director, Lew Cryer, who ignored my release schedules.
No big deal, I guess, except for George Pasero and the Emerald. But maybe that’s why I can’t help but suspect that the published report, “She’s gone,” is another collaboration between the writer and someone at the University.