I was out of town all week (gotta make a blog entry about that), but when I returned I heard the latest in the Barry Huckeby saga. The story has taken a bizarre turn.
Those who have followed the story about Barry and allegations he stole $3,000 from the gate receipts at a Columbus North high school sectional football playoff game probably already know the decision reached by the school board. The decision is incomprehensible.
Barry lost his positions as Assistant Athletic Director and Basketball Coach, but kept his teaching job. Of course, none of the details of the hearing they held last week were released, so the general public still has no information about the facts or evidence of the case.
What puzzles me is the nonsensical decision. If he's guilty of theft, he should have been terminated - end of story. If it was a misunderstanding, he should have been exonerated and returned to all of his duties. If he violated policy and procedures, but quickly admitted his errors and cooperated fully, maybe he would have been fired from the role of Assistant Athletic Director and/or suspended temporarily from the coaching position. But removing him from both the AD and coaching jobs while letting him keep the teaching job just doesn't make sense.
The ongoing problem is we really don't know the details. We don't know the evidence. We only know some vague and contradictory information that he indeed took some cash, in an amount somewhere between $100 and $3,000.
The school board's decision sounds a lot like a compromise. My logical best guess is that the board was split between retaining or terminating Barry, and they knew they had to come forward to the public united behind a specific resolution. So they compromised, letting him stay on as a teacher but taking away his responsibilities in the athletic department.
From my perspective, if he deserves to be fired as coach, he also deserves to be fired as a teacher. I can imagine a scenario where they decided he didn't have the skills or discipline to be an effective Athletic Director, so it could completely make sense if they terminated that role. But teacher and coach are pretty much the same to me - he should either be allowed to return in both or should be fired from both. Anything else, like the decision actually reached, sends the worst of mixed messages.
Welcome to Columbus, home of the Twilight Zone.
2 comments:
What is INCOMPREHENSIBLE? The fact that the school board was an initial JURY and Coach was found innocent? Why is this bizarre? The only thing bizarre is the fact that the administration who have accused and innoncent man in order to protect their fauly system have not had to answer to anyone yet! Have you read the rebuttals regarding the DUKE rape case yet? In some ways, the situation with Coach Huck is similar and the truth is still slow to come out.
Those responsible for the public lynching of Coach Huckeby will have their day in court. Coach definitely made some errors in judgement due to overworking himself. When he told his superiors of his errors, they decided to protect themselves, and try to pin him with a crime.
That FACT is that the $3000 reported missing money WAS NEVER THERE in the first place! The school board admitted the money couldn't have been there. The $100 was taken from a cash 'slush fund' in the athletic office to purschase supplies for his office to do his job! This was proven! Witnesses were called in the hearing in front of the board who were NEVER talked to by the Barney Fife police detective investigating the case.
When Coach Huck told the detective the truth about his mistakes just a few days after making them, he was told he was lying. The detective admitted he never talked to the gate workers who were at both the October 20th and October 27th games.
There will be a LAWSUIT that will turn this town upside down.
Barry should definitely still be coaching, and it will be Columbus' loss when he takes his talents to another school & town in Indiana. Despite his mistakes, and his honesty in reporting them, he is still a TRUE ROLE MODEL with great inspiration to all young people who come into contact with him. Just ask his players & students what they truly think of Coach Huckeby.
A Coach Huck Supporter!
(and parent of one of his students!)
Anonymous, obviously you have inside information that isn't publicly available.
If I understand you fully, this whole incident was nothing but some sort of vendetta. I don't understand, how could there be a vendetta against a brand new guy who had not even been here but a couple of months?
How do you know what the police investigation found? It's my understanding that ongoing investigations are supposed to be kept confidential, so how is it you know that the investigators were incompetent?
Finally, if this really was some sort of campaign to trash Huckeby's career, why did they let him keep his teaching job? You haven't answered my fundamental question - if he's guilty, he should be gone, if he's innocent, he should be fully reinstated. So why the compromise decision? You say he made an error in judgement, but you don't say what it was. You say that it is fact that the $3K number was never missing. Where did you get that information, which has not been released publicly?
You are very angry, obviously. No doubt because you are a self-described supporter of Barry Huckeby. Can it be possible that you got one side of the story only, and perhaps have not been exposed to the full and true story yet?
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