Rob Sand Wants Barta Out

SwirlinLingerie said:
You are reaching on a lot of this. A lot of folks in leadership positions in private business are fired these days when they are so closely tied to lawsuits. Particularly lawsuits involving racial bias and/or sexual orientation.

And you can call it a bullshit lawsuit, but two different reports (one conducted by the organization itself) also concluded racial bias.

And some of the organization's best and brightest "employees" brought this very issue to leadership's desk a couple years before.

But I guess we all saw the brilliant business acumen at work the second the football money spigot turned off during covid. That's when his creativity, innovation and business savvy really came to the forefront.
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Oh, I did not call it a bullshit lawsuit. My point is that lawsuits happen and it can be part of doing business when you are a billion dollar organization. As much as the lawyers and former players screamed about change, the end result is some large checks being cashed. Its happens every day and I personally would not use this settlement as a justification for firing Barta.

What sort of company fires its CEO when one of its managers is accused of discrimination but does not fire the manager? I have no understanding that Barta is accused of direct wrongdoing in the lawsuit. Did he direct what sort of haircut players could have or how they were treated in the weight room?

Why is no one here calling for KF to be fired? He and his son and his handpicked strength coached were directly accused of wrong doing. Why no calls for the head coach to resign in this thread?

Barta=scapegoat to some.
 
Grady said:
This is a solid post, but I'm not sure Barta has "consistently grown UIowa's value far above market expectations". Court cases have factually documented he is a subpar administrator, and the UI's lawsuits haven't just been from disgruntled grunts -- they've been brought by other high-level administrators and employees responsible for much of the UI's revenue. Said lawsuits have also brought nationally negative attention to the UI brand, and likely negatively impacted Iowa's ability to recruit some top revenue producers -- i.e. football players. Under similar circumstances, it's fair to suggest any board of directors of a private company would be doing a good, hard review of the CEO. The other factor involved in such a situation is: in the national market is there a suitable potential replacement CEO in the wings? In this case, the answer is probably yes.
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Fine. Then fire him if this is all accurate. But, you don't fire him as a pretext for this lawsuit when he had little do with the claims. Fire him because he sucks, but don't pretend this suit is on him. Or, if you are going to fire Barta for this lawsuit you god damn well have to fire KF too. He is the one who did the alleged deeds! This is certainly not KF's first sin in terms of performance and scandal. If Mr. Sand or anyone else is so F'ing outraged by this settlement that you are affronted beyond measure, then follow your principles and hand KF his pink slip. If you aren't willing to fire KF over this, you aint all that offended. You just hate Gary Barta.
 
I’m going to be indisposed for several hours and won’t be able to monitor this thread, friendly reminder to keep it to the lawsuit and related effects so I don’t have to go in and start slicing and dicing tonight when I get home. No arguments, that stuff is explicitly allowed in OT Open.

We’re all Hawkeye fans here.

Well, except for @HawksMN
 
NorthKCHawk said:
Oh, I did not call it a bullshit lawsuit. My point is that lawsuits happen and it can be part of doing business when you are a billion dollar organization. As much as the lawyers and former players screamed about change, the end result is some large checks being cashed. Its happens every day and I personally would not use this settlement as a justification for firing Barta.

What sort of company fires its CEO when one of its managers is accused of discrimination but does not fire the manager? I have no understanding that Barta is accused of direct wrongdoing in the lawsuit. Did he direct what sort of haircut players could have or how they were treated in the weight room?

Why is no one here calling for KF to be fired? He and his son and his handpicked strength coached were directly accused of wrong doing. Why no calls for the head coach to resign in this thread?

Barta=scapegoat to some.
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I don't have a strong opinion as to whether or not Barta should be fired. I leave that decision to the person he reports tol

However, I have STRONG OPINION that not one thin dime of the settlement fund should come from any taxpayer funded account. The entire settlement should be paid out of athletic department funds. The BIG tv deals are providing a flood of money to the U of I athletic department. That's where the settlement funds should come from. Why should ordinary Iowans be responsible for paying any of the settlement while the BIG cash cow is still producing more money than the athletic department can count? Take the settlement funds from the athletic department!!!!
 
NorthKCHawk said:
Oh, I did not call it a bullshit lawsuit. My point is that lawsuits happen and it can be part of doing business when you are a billion dollar organization. As much as the lawyers and former players screamed about change, the end result is some large checks being cashed. Its happens every day and I personally would not use this settlement as a justification for firing Barta.

What sort of company fires its CEO when one of its managers is accused of discrimination but does not fire the manager? I have no understanding that Barta is accused of direct wrongdoing in the lawsuit. Did he direct what sort of haircut players could have or how they were treated in the weight room?

Why is no one here calling for KF to be fired? He and his son and his handpicked strength coached were directly accused of wrong doing. Why no calls for the head coach to resign in this thread?

Barta=scapegoat to some.
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NorthKCHawk said:
Fine. Then fire him if this is all accurate. But, you don't fire him as a pretext for this lawsuit when he had little do with the claims. Fire him because he sucks, but don't pretend this suit is on him. Or, if you are going to fire Barta for this lawsuit you god damn well have to fire KF too. He is the one who did the alleged deeds! This is certainly not KF's first sin in terms of performance and scandal. If Mr. Sand or anyone else is so F'ing outraged by this settlement that you are affronted beyond measure, then follow your principles and hand KF his pink slip. If you aren't willing to fire KF over this, you aint all that offended. You just hate Gary Barta.
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I assume the state signed off on the agreement. How is Rob Sand interjecting now and not earlier? It is pretty difficult to avoid many of these lawsuits. Also, the allegations in my opinion were ridiculous. Sounds like some improper words were uttered. I would be worth $1billion if I were compensated for the improper things my junior high and high school coach said to me. I can understand Rob Sand saying he didn’t want to pay it, but calling for Barta’s job is taking it a step too far.
 
NorthKCHawk said:
Oh, I did not call it a bullshit lawsuit. My point is that lawsuits happen and it can be part of doing business when you are a billion dollar organization. As much as the lawyers and former players screamed about change, the end result is some large checks being cashed. Its happens every day and I personally would not use this settlement as a justification for firing Barta.

What sort of company fires its CEO when one of its managers is accused of discrimination but does not fire the manager? I have no understanding that Barta is accused of direct wrongdoing in the lawsuit. Did he direct what sort of haircut players could have or how they were treated in the weight room?

Why is no one here calling for KF to be fired? He and his son and his handpicked strength coached were directly accused of wrong doing. Why no calls for the head coach to resign in this thread?

Barta=scapegoat to some.
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You said companies settle bullshit lawsuits every day.

Regardless, the issues were brought to Barta's attention a couple years before. An inability to adequately address those issues is what ultimately led to roughly 50 former players tweeting/speaking publicly about the matter, which caused two major reviews, which led to a lawsuit and ultimately a settlement.

Further, per your point about billion dollar organizations and lawsuits being part of the deal, how many other schools is this happening to? How many ADs have rung up the kind of lawsuits and settlements under their watch like Barta has? Definitely a couple, but I think it is a pretty short list. And they haven't always kept their jobs.
 
SwirlinLingerie said:
You said companies settle bullshit lawsuits every day.

Regardless, the issues were brought to Barta's attention a couple years before. An inability to adequately address those issues is what ultimately led to roughly 50 former players tweeting/speaking publicly about the matter, which caused two major reviews, which led to a lawsuit and ultimately a settlement.

Further, per your point about billion dollar organizations and lawsuits being part of the deal, how many other schools is this happening to? How many ADs have rung up the kind of lawsuits and settlements under their watch like Barta has? Definitely a couple, but I think it is a pretty short list. And they haven't always kept their jobs.
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A settlement like this will open the floodgates probably. It's one thing if a gay coach gets fired and sues because there are way less gay coaches that have been fired that can follow suit. How many black players will he licking their chops now? I'd be racking my brain thinking of any time a coach said something even remotely off to me.
 
Fryowa said:
The Iowa Settlement Board has voted 2-1 to pay the settlement.

So there are 2 million bucks of taxpayer money going to the players.

Things are gonna get a little more hairy for Barry Farta now...
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Who's those 2 on the board? The politics that must be in play for something like this must be off the charts. Some large swinging dicked donor(s) must be flexing. Nothing else makes much sense. So Barta has on his resume having to pay out lawsuits for gender discrimination and racial discrimination totaling over 10 million bucks and has the balls to ask that tax dollars be used to pay some of it and GETS IT DONE. Hell he'll probably get a raise when he renegotiates his contract I think it's up after next yr.
 
PCHawk said:
A settlement like this will open the floodgates probably. It's one thing if a gay coach gets fired and sues because there are way less gay coaches that have been fired that can follow suit. How many black players will he licking their chops now? I'd be racking my brain thinking of any time a coach said something even remotely off to me.
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Come on, man. This wasn't a couple comments. There were two comprehensive reviews, with dozens of players and current coaches/staff members interviewed. The findings of those two reviews is what gave the lawsuit legs.

Regardless of what anyone thinks of the lawsuit, I find it disturbing that so many Hawk fans wants to dismiss the findings of those reports.
 
cornfedcowboy said:
I can understand Rob Sand saying he didn’t want to pay it, but calling for Barta’s job is taking it a step too far.
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Sand's basis for firing Barta isn't just this lawsuit. Barta has been at the helm for a whole slew of scandals that happened on his watch. Peter Gray, Tracy Griesbaum, and several others. The Griesbaum thing was an absolute fiasco of mismanagement and failure to document. Then he "hires" and "retains" the most under-performing offensive coordinator in recent college football history (commensurate with length of service and pay), and now this. It's time.
 
NorthKCHawk said:
Gents, some perspective is needed. Gary Barta has overseen the athletic department for a long time. With its revenue, employees, endowment and facilaties, Iowa athletics is the equivalent of a billion dollar company. That is not hyperbole. Any NFL franchise is worth a couple bill. That is for just one football team. While a college athletic department is not able to be sold (yet LOL), that does not change the nature of the business being a massive and lucrative entity. Barta is the equivalent of the CEO of a massive company.

Companies the size of Iowa, that have money and are high profile, draw law suits and claims on a regular basis. In legal venacular, lawsuits are the cost of doing business. Companies settle bullshit lawsuits for way too much money every day. I have seen it in my practice more times that I can count. It just is what it is. Indeed, this may not even be Barta's call to make. Iowa has lawyers, adjusters, general counsel and lot's of folks making this call. Barta is doing what the experts around him recommend. That is what good CEO's do.

If you are a board of directors, and your CEO has run your company profitably for over a decade, and consistently grown its revenue and value far above other industries or market expectations, you don't fire him because of a couple lawsuits or a couple of scandals. You look at the totality of the circumstances and decide if he is doing his job well or not. Of course, that includes considering that all Big 10 schools are rising with TV revenue, so he should not get credit for all of the department's success, but he should get some. The captain of the ship gets more praise and blame than is actually deserved for sure.

I am Barta neutral. I don't think he is awesome, but I don't think he sucks simply because he hitched his wagon to a legendary football coach and is not rocking that boat. If you want to fire him for cause, with respect, settling a 20 million dollar case for 4 million dollars to put a high profile lawsuit to bed is not the dumbest thing a CEO has ever approved of. Not by a long shot.
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Interesting prespective, I'd like to see how Iowa's legal costs compare to peers'. I still think Gary is a weak leader.
 
SwirlinLingerie said:
Come on, man. This wasn't a couple comments. There were two comprehensive reviews, with dozens of players and current coaches/staff members interviewed. The findings of those two reviews is what gave the lawsuit legs.

Regardless of what anyone thinks of the lawsuit, I find it disturbing that so many Hawk fans wants to dismiss the findings of those reports.
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Between the comments called out by other players as lies and the comments that were retracted under oath, I have no idea how many comments there were. But my point was more in general that suing for being mistreated by a football coach will probably get easier and easier.
 
Kirk releasing a statement saying he wanted to fight it and the deal was settled behind his back says a lot.
 
I had no idea who Peter Gray was, had to google him:

www.espn.com

Records: Ex-Iowa official had been fired in S.C.

The former University of Iowa athletic department official at the center of a sexual harassment investigation had been fired from a previous job at a liberal arts college in South Carolina in 1999, according to records released Wednesday.
www.espn.com www.espn.com
 
PCHawk said:
Kirk releasing a statement saying he wanted to fight it and the deal was settled behind his back says a lot.
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What does it say? He's stubborn and outdated or he's a cool dude and knows he doesn't do things wrong? Or something else?
 
To me the gender case settlement is entirely different from the football case settlement. In the first case it involved direct university employees vs their employer. In the second case it involves one racial group of students against a sponsored university activity. In the first case Barta didn't perform well as a supervisor by not documenting the reasons for dismissal. Generally each employee has a personnel file and the court decided he didn't back up his rationale for firing.

In the second case it falls entirely on Kirk for what his employees supposedly did or did not do. I'm not taking sides if the players were aggrieved or not. If they think they were, then so be it. The behavior of the coaches cited in the suit indicate bad judgement on their part and indirectly on Kirk's part. Athletic coaching is not thought of as employee vs employer relationship and as such not very much gets documented for lawsuit purposes. It is unclear if the current coaches are trained to keep a personnel file on each player they coach. They may need to in the future. This is for the AD and HC to handle.

The state of Iowa routinely deals with employee suits against it. The state loses some of those cases because the supervision is lack in measuring performance. I am familiar with a case of an employee hired to learn my spouses job which involved preparing important public report data. The individual's resume indicated higher education and ability to use a particular brand of software. After one month it became obvious the individual wasn't qualified. For 5 months my spouse had to document all the training efforts and fixing all the mistakes made. The individual end up quitting. Not all situations like this are avoided. To often actions are not taken to build a case for dismissal and a under performing person gets a settlement.
 
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