KF Disbands Former-Player Advisory Committee

I just listened to the portion that David Porter was on and came over to this site and saw Mr. Howe's posting of the interview. Would encourage anyone who is into this subject to listen to the interview. My takeaways ...........

* Porter is a smart intelligent fella that is courageous enough to express his thoughts via several media invites to do so.........not an easy thing to do with arrows flying
* He is a loyal Hawkeye and his intent is to improve the program not degrade it
* He wants to see continued progress with the racial issues within the program
* He acknowledges that the committee was making progress while in existence
* He respects the privacy rights of those that have chosen not to come out publicly for comment
* His opinion on this matter has nothing to do with Iowa's performances on the field
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My personal opinion of things has changed to some degree. I still believe Porter overstepped his bounds and let his emotions stray a bit too far with some of his comments. I see his frustration in the last meeting where some of the staff did not offer answers to his one pending question but why degrade the progress that had been made based on this particular meeting. The staff should have all responded and showed their interest in doing so........a bad sign to not do so. There is no "winner" in all this.

Maybe Kirk should have a meeting with Porter and figure out how to best move forward in continuing to make the program better. He should also have a discussion with some of his staff on improving their involvement. Kirk being stubborn is not good and Porter firing off big missiles is also not helpful to the cause in my opinion.

Form your own opinion and listen to the podcast.
 
ohhawk said:
I just listened to the portion that David Porter was on and came over to this site and saw Mr. Howe's posting of the interview. Would encourage anyone who is into this subject to listen to the interview. My takeaways ...........

* Porter is a smart intelligent fella that is courageous enough to express his thoughts via several media invites to do so.........not an easy thing to do with arrows flying
* He is a loyal Hawkeye and his intent is to improve the program not degrade it
* He wants to see continued progress with the racial issues within the program
* He acknowledges that the committee was making progress while in existence
* He respects the privacy rights of those that have chosen not to come out publicly for comment
* His opinion on this matter has nothing to do with Iowa's performances on the field
_____________________________________________

My personal opinion of things has changed to some degree. I still believe Porter overstepped his bounds and let his emotions stray a bit too far with some of his comments. I see his frustration in the last meeting where some of the staff did not offer answers to his one pending question but why degrade the progress that had been made based on this particular meeting. The staff should have all responded and showed their interest in doing so........a bad sign to not do so. There is no "winner" in all this.

Maybe Kirk should have a meeting with Porter and figure out how to best move forward in continuing to make the program better. He should also have a discussion with some of his staff on improving their involvement. Kirk being stubborn is not good and Porter firing off big missiles is also not helpful to the cause in my opinion.

Form your own opinion and listen to the podcast.
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I listened as carefully as possible. You voiced clearly the conclusions that also make sense to me. From there, I need time to re-evaluate my current views. I share this with David Porter: I, too, am a Hawkeye Fan, always have been always will be. And, like Mr. Porter I want was is best for the program long run.
 
what I don't understand is if your role is to advise, how does it fall within your preview to demand that every coach write out answers to your question. Does he think he is the accountability board?

to me this smells like a guy who's having a bad day or week and he's scrapping for a fight.

and to make such demands in season ... he knows well that everyone is very busy.
 
RobHowe said:
That's a fair point. There are aspects/parts of the story we don't know. We may never know.

But there is one constant, and you addressed it in your last sentence.
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To these points, to an extent, we can say who was right or who was wrong in this. From the outside populace who is typically too lazy in trying to better understand what is actually going on, the damage is already done because this informal agreement should have not concluded this way. The outside optics are a terrible look for the University. Like it or not, KF remains the constant in all of this and not for the better.
Lastly, why was the question that Porter asked of the assistants met with resistance? Does KF think that DEI is a topic to be silo’ed so that it is discussed only at certain times or parts of the year? A true culture encompasses something you do on an ongoing, daily basis.
 
RobHowe said:
What was Porter's motivation here? Was he just looking to burn bridges, be alienated by the program he loves, the fans and the coaches he played for? What did he see that led him to his conclusion? Does that matter or not?

I'm honestly asking for thoughts. Those aren't rhetorical questions?

And I know the committee had split opinions on the matter, but to say that none of them or other members of the alumni to which he sent his messages agreed with Porter is flat out false.
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The whole point of all of this work was to make changes in the program to make sure that ALL players are treated fairly and equally to the extent possible and are given the tools to reach their maximum potential as players, students and adults.

The politics of the committee aren’t nearly as important.

Rob, you are a highly skilled journalist. If you want to get to the bottom of this issue, interview Goodson, Kelly-Martin and other players and ask the following questions: Is it better? Were changes made? Are the players
now comfortable with how they are being treated? Is it a healthy environment?

That is all that matters, isn’t it? If those good changes happened, does anything else really matter? Separate the egos from the reality.
 
It was good to get KF's viewpoint and direction through the letter to the parents. It answered some questions. I think it will be good when we have a chance to ask KF questions because I think there are more important ones to be asked.
 
The longer this thing develops, the more I think it was a (typical) PR disaster in wording, timing, and everything else by the U of I.

And I'm less inclined to agree with Porter after listening to his interview. He acknowledges that the changes requested were made, and his big sticking point is that he wants the football staff fired. How about asking current players and parents if they want the staff fired? Porter seems to be somewhat vindictive and I think he has an at least somewhat personal agenda. In his interview he gives zero credence to current players, quite the opposite actually.

He's basically saying, yes, the changes were made and the environment has gotten much better, but I want the staff fired. I think revenge or punishment is more important to him that results.

Maybe I'm wrong.
 
Fryowa said:
The longer this thing develops, the more I think it was a (typical) PR disaster in wording, timing, and everything else by the U of I.

And I'm less inclined to agree with Porter after listening to his interview. He acknowledges that the changes requested were made, and his big sticking point is that he wants the football staff fired. How about asking current players and parents if they want the staff fired? Porter seems to be somewhat vindictive and I think he has an at least somewhat personal agenda. In his interview he gives zero credence to current players, quite the opposite actually.

He's basically saying, yes, the changes were made and the environment has gotten much better, but I want the staff fired. I think revenge or punishment is more important to him that results.

Maybe I'm wrong.
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My impression is that Porter felt like he had actual power over the staff to make them do things. When they did not comply with his request for the October meeting and were somewhat dismissive of him in the meeting, I believe he felt personally disrespected. It sounds like he then went to Kirk about this and Kirk more or less asked/said it could wait until after the season - further upsetting Porter.

What is troubling is the quote "We are all white." But I haven't seen it in full context or narrative. Did he cherry pick the quote out of a longer quote or explanation, did he misinterpret what was being said? Because we all know that can happen when tempers are high. Or is there a coach who needs to be addressed? We will probably never know exactly. But I would like to hear from someone not Porter or Lomax on that point.
 
GesterHawk said:
What is troubling is the quote "We are all white." But I haven't seen it in full context or narrative. Did he cherry pick the quote out of a longer quote or explanation, did he misinterpret what was being said?
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Obviously I wasn’t there, but what if a coach made a comment to the effect of, “We can’t be the ones deciding what changes to be made because we’re all white?”

Maybe something like that wouldn’t be 100% accurate, but it’s one of a million different ways it could be put into context. That’s the problem with closed door meetings. There’s no transcript, you only hear one side with zero context, and the coaches have probably been told not to comment and this can’t clarify or defend themselves
 
RobHowe said:
Do you think the decision to disband the committee was made it November, as KF is quoted saying, or did he make the decision after Porter send his recommendation to the text group?
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Not to be flippant, but does it matter? 50% of Hawk fans and media will take him at his word saying Porter was not the reason, 25% will not care either way, and the other 25% won't believe him no matter what. So why lie? He has his supporters and his extension, so why lie?

Call me a bit naive, but I like to tend to believe that people are inherently decent and try to live in a way they consider good. We may not all agree that they actually are, but we are all entitled to our opinions. But as the saying goes, no one thinks that they are the villain in their own story.

So I pondered if he is lying about when he decided to disband the current and restructure and whether Porter's texts were the reason, why?

This is what I came up with taking into account his love and fierce loyalty to the players he has coached and the coaches that have coached for him:
Why lie? To protect someone.

Himself - probably not. He has his supporters and his extension.

His coaches/son - Possibly - Porter most likely overstepped what Kirk had probably envisioned for the council. I imagine KF felt that way coming out of the October meeting/aftermath before learning about Porter's texts. But does lying about the timing protect them - no. Does lying about Porter being the reason protect them - not really, at least IMO. The worms were out of the can with the text.

Porter - Possibly - KF was hurt by what Porter texted, but does the man still care enough for him as a former player and someone who has had considerable amount to do with the progression of the program? He doesn't seem to want to throw Porter under the bus. Maybe he wants to shield Porter from the ire of the 50% of Hawk fans who are the KFanatics.
 
Fryowa said:
Obviously I wasn’t there, but what if a coach made a comment to the effect of, “We can’t be the ones deciding what changes to be made because we’re all white?”

Maybe something like that wouldn’t be 100% accurate, but it’s one of a million different ways it could be put into context. That’s the problem with closed door meetings. There’s no transcript, you only hear one side with zero context, and the coaches have probably been told not to comment and this can’t clarify or defend themselves
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Exactly.
 
Porter and KF could do themselves a great service by having a sit down, burying the hatchet, and issuing a joint statement on how they will continue to work together to improve DEI issues in the Iowa program with its current staff in place.

I suspect both men's egos will not allow that, but that would be in the best interest of the Iowa program and its current players, and that should be what this whole thing is all about.
 
The most troubling aspect to me is that Porter described all the meetings with Kirk as contentious, and the fact a basic 30 minute touch base meeting went completely off the rails and included assistants walking out of it at some point. And the fact he called out Brian specifically. The committee is an impressive list of men, volunteering to help Kirk at his lowest professional moment.

It's difficult to assess what happened without more folks talking. I also get that committee members want to respect everyone's privacy, but I'd think that if some of them felt Porter was completely out on a limb here they'd speak up right now. It doesn't mean they think Kirk needs to retire, too, but I'd guess if some of them felt Porter simply had an axe to grind or had gone off the deep end without any basis to support his text, they'd feel obligated to at least offer a subtle rebuttal. But we've only heard from Lomax, and his point mostly seemed to be that Porter's conclusion didn't represent a consensus from the committee.
 
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If any of you follow twitter, the 2 reporters from the Gazette who broke the story are getting absolutely torched for misconstruing the words in KF's email and cherry picking quotes from it.

In his email KF said he was dissolving the committee "as it stands" and would restructure it in the next sentence. But the reporters left that out.
 
Regardless of the whirlwind of speculation, the blame game, the what if’s, the single most important result is that an advisory committee will be re-formed and will be comprised of alums of the football program who have more recent exposure to the program. Perfectly logical transition.

Now let’s get busy and address the inclusion issues that remain and strengthen the progress that has been made.
Please. No more distractions.
 
Fryowa said:
If any of you follow twitter, the 2 reporters from the Gazette who broke the story are getting absolutely torched for misconstruing the words in KF's email and cherry picking quotes from it.

In his email KF said he was dissolving the committee "as it stands" and would restructure it in the next sentence. But the reporters left that out.
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Which is fine and fair game. But still leaves a few troubling questions raised by Porter's texts and interview.
 
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