| NEWS Sports World Crushing Alabama's Athletic Director For Recent Scandals - The Spun

[Bama News]

https://thespun.com/sec/alabama-crimson-tide/sports-world-crushing-alabamas-athletic-director-for-recent-scandals

The University of Alabama athletics department has seen better days.

In the last few months alone, Alabama has been scrutinized for a number of scandals involving players, coaches and athletic department employees.

Most recently, Crimson Tide baseball coach Brad Bohannon was fired in the midst of a possible betting scandal involving his program. Bohannon is also one of three employees being sued for alleged mistreatment by a former Alabama player.

Throw in the recent arrest of Matthew Self, Alabama's Deputy Director of Athletics, Compliance and Support Services, for alleged domestic violence and the murder scandal involving former Tide men's basketball player Darius Miles and it's been a tough run for the school and its athletic director Greg Byrne.

Not surprisingly, Byrne has become the subject of intense social media scrutiny given the string of bad news.

"The sheer volume of athletic department scandals attached to Greg Byrne at both Arizona and now Alabama is breathtaking," said USA TODAY's Dan Wolken.

"Greg Byrne’s job as Alabama athletic director has to be on the thinnest of ice lmao," said an Auburn fan. "Alabama athletics have been a massive continual PR yikes for the entirety of 2023 and to be the one in charge of overseeing all that?"

"At what point does Greg Byrne start getting held responsible for some of this?" asked Jake Crain of Crain & Company.

"We're one more Alabama athletic department mess up away from Saban just telling Greg Byrne he's now the athletic director," another commenter added.

"Been a rough couple months for Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne," said AL.com's Joseph Goodman in a massive understatement.

Byrne, 51, was hired at Alabama in 2017 after a seven-year stint at Arizona. He previously served as the AD at Mississippi State from 2008-10.

 

[TerryP]

Three comments:

1. @It Takes Eleven here's your first example? Or, one example?
2. All three major sports at Alabama have had bad publicity runs this sports calendar year.
3. If you want to support an argument you can always find someone who'll take your side: Goodman and Wolken are quoted.

 

[It Takes Eleven]

Three comments:

1. @It Takes Eleven here's your first example? Or, one example?
2. All three major sports at Alabama have had bad publicity runs this sports calendar year.
3. If you want to support an argument you can always find someone who'll take your side: Goodman and Wolken are quoted.

Thanks. Perhaps I'm suffering from selective amnesia. What was the bad football publicity?

 

[TerryP]

Thanks. Perhaps I'm suffering from selective amnesia. What was the bad football publicity?

Jimbo

 

[alabama mike]

Byrne is not a fault for what other grown adults do. Yes, he is the boss but he cannot control everything just like CNS and CNO cannot always control what their players do when they are away from them. Yes, it looks bad. Yes, it makes for dumping by other schools and sportscasters. The best way to handle this is to address it, deal with it where possible and do your best to hire quality people in fill those positions. Best wishes to AD Byrne as we move forward in the next few days, weeks and months.

 

[BamaFan334]

Byrne is not a fault for what other grown adults do. Yes, he is the boss but he cannot control everything just like CNS and CNO cannot always control what their players do when they are away from them. Yes, it looks bad. Yes, it makes for dumping by other schools and sportscasters. The best way to handle this is to address it, deal with it where possible and do your best to hire quality people in fill those positions. Best wishes to AD Byrne as we move forward in the next few days, weeks and months.

Unfortunately comes with the territory of being a million dollar employee.

 

[mando]

Byrnes is responsible and it is his job to make sure the athletic program has the right people and culture to do the right things. A hiccup here and there is not an issue but this is something to keep an eye on for systemic issues. He is certainly earning his pay these days.

 

[OldPlayer]

What can Byrne control? He can’t control a player involved in a shooting. He can’t control an assistant AD who hit his wife. He can’t control a coach’s behavior in a betting scandal. His job now is to make sure each person is accountable for their behavior and make sure that accountability is recognized by everyone involved in the athletic department.

 

[Brandon Van de Graaff]

There's a whole lot of gray area here where people are only seeing black and white (not talking about this forum). I think it is fair to say some missteps have been made under Byrne, especially with the basketball/Miles/Miller stuff... I think it's also fair to say that Alabama is under a microscope like few (if any) others. Every negative story, regardless of significance, pulls in eyes and drives content. It breathes life into parasitic leeches like al.com. But, in many of these cases I've seen Byrne get hammered for, I'm not real sure what else he's supposed to do? In a sense, it would be like arguing that Saban needs to be fired for the misdeeds of his players. The other issue, which I think gets mixed in, is that many of our own fans don't like him. Maybe it is the concession prices (a personal gripe of mine), the delayed arena, or (and most likely, IMO) his handling of the seating and TP ticket restructuring. But to me, those are separate issues, even if under the same AD umbrella. Those issues have created a bias against him though that I believe hasn't helped with some of the PR stuff... basically, he's receiving enemy and friendly fire.

 

[Crimson&WhiteGecko]

I think it's also fair to say that Alabama is under a microscope like few (if any) others. Every negative story, regardless of significance, pulls in eyes and drives content. It breathes life into parasitic leeches like al.com.

PLUS the dying SI magazine will use whatever means to drive clicks. Lets be honest, 'Bama narratives, good or ill, have been paying the bills for SI for some time.

As far has the home crowd is concerned, every fan base has their hyena crowds & they MUST have the carrion of others missteps/misfortunes to thrive (proven in a fairly recent thread regarding a certain BBall player).

As long as those in charge can recognize the publicity & chatter as what it is, move on, & get better, well be fine. Time will tell.

 

[UAgrad93]

Byrne can’t hold everyone’s hand, do bed check, have cell phones out in his office, do a curfew check, etc. Could the Miles/Miller stuff been handled better- without a doubt! Oats was left out on his own after that preliminary hearing and the PR people and Byrne drug their feet to help. As far as Bohannon goes, story broke when, on Monday? He investigated and quickly fired his ass. No dragging the feet there. He could’ve looked the other way.

 

[BamaFan334]

What can Byrne control? He can’t control a player involved in a shooting. He can’t control an assistant AD who hit his wife. He can’t control a coach’s behavior in a betting scandal. His job now is to make sure each person is accountable for their behavior and make sure that accountability is recognized by everyone involved in the athletic department.

Meh, he does have a hand in who he is hiring. Consistent reminders about domestic abuse, drinking and driving, and a zero tolerance policy is a start. He can't control a basketball player involved in a shooting, but he can control the PR around it, policies moving forward, and simply creating awareness. Still curious what went down with the Assistant AD. Character is a huge piece of this and he is paid a lot of money to run a clean program and make sure there are stop gap measures in place so we don't get popped by this kind of stuff.

Bohannon should have already been gone it sounds. We built a facility where we show we want to have a good program and he was not the guy. Cut that cord. It all flows uphill in the end, just like Saban is responsible for Golding's DUI. Byrne is responsible at the end of the day for the people he puts in place to run his sports programs.

 

[TerryP]

He can't control a basketball player involved in a shooting, but he can control the PR around it, policies moving forward, and simply creating awareness.

How? What can anyone do to "control" an opinion we saw voiced from Wolken, and the Travis's of the world?

 

[TerryP]

PLUS the dying SI magazine will use whatever means to drive clicks. Lets be honest, 'Bama narratives, good or ill, have been paying the bills for SI for some time.

I don't think this is a fair shake. Chris Walsh has done a pretty good job with the Bama SI site (setting aside unpaid labor.)

 

[Crimson&WhiteGecko]

I don't think this is a fair shake. Chris Walsh has done a pretty good job with the Bama SI site (setting aside unpaid labor.)

It is not clear to me how your comments on Mr. Walsh establish an argument about SI using 'Bama material to drive content attention/clicks.

 

[BamaFan334]

How? What can anyone do to "control" an opinion we saw voiced from Wolken, and the Travis's of the world?

I'm talking more about the grenades they sent Oats out to get hit with during the whole thing. That alleviates 30% of articles there talking about how bad we came across and insensitive and such. He can control that. We talked on here about how we butchered that entire situation where Oats didn't even appear to be prepped.

 

[TerryP]

It is not clear to me how your comments on Mr. Walsh establish an argument about SI using 'Bama material to drive content attention/clicks.

It's more of a comment about judging the publication as a whole... It does ring true with a lot of their reporting...Dellinger has done a he'll of a job recently

 

[Crimson&WhiteGecko]

It's more of a comment about judging the publication as a whole... It does ring true with a lot of their reporting...Dellinger has done a he'll of a job recently

Ahh ok. To be clear my comment covers reporting on good & bad material. Reporting on 'Bama has been good business for SI for some time, especially when CNS showed up.