Sun 29 Jul 2007
This seems like a good appointment.
Alison Swain ‘01 has been named the new head coach of women’s tennis at Williams College, acting athletic director Lisa Melendy announced recently.
Swain takes the reigns of the women’s tennis program from Julie Greenwood ‘96, who resigned in June after nine seasons at the helm of the Ephs program. Greenwood is leaving Williams to join SquashHaven in New Haven, CT.
Swain played under Greenwood for four years, and helped the Ephs win their first NCAA title in 2001. “I am extremely excited to return to Williams College to coach the women’s tennis team,” Swain said. “Julie Greenwood has brought a lot of heart, tradition, and competitive excellence to the program; and I hope to continue both her legacy and the team’s legacy.”
I like to see coaches at Williams who are as smart as their players and who are likely to stay for years. Hiring alumni is more likely to achieve both goals. Kudos to Melendy on this choice.
July 29th, 2007 at 6:49 am
Hear, hear!
July 29th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
“Kudos to Melendy on this choice.”
Not so fast my friend. Last month, Melendy and Wagner got rid of Cathy Poole, the golf coach, and her husband Rick resign over the way it was handled. (poor communication and lack of class)Rick has been the golf coach for a long time and has done a fantastic job.
Melendy also did not report several NCAA rule violations to the NCAA for fear that the school would lose the Directors Cup. Several team sports had violations and nothing was done other than a meeting with coaches. Not sure if Morty told her not to report the findings or she took that upon herself in her quest to become AD.
If Williams does not self report then conference schools will soon.
July 29th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
“Melendy also did not report several NCAA rule violations to the NCAA”
And I suppose you know exactly what “all” of these are? What a crock.
July 29th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Not all, but several. Enough to wonder why a report was not submitted.
July 29th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Dave, can you contact Lisa and see if she knew of any violations and, if so, did she report them? If there were any maybe they have been reported and we have just not heard anything yet.
Also, what is the firing of the golf coach about?
July 29th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Vague assertions by an anonymous poster! What a scandal.
July 30th, 2007 at 1:18 am
I am shocked to hear that Cathy was “fired” (however I do note Frank’s caveat re: anonymous posters). Does anyone have any more information on this? At least from the website, it appears as though there has indeed been a changing of the guard for women’s golf.
http://www.williams.edu/athletics/coach.php?sport=34&year=2007
July 30th, 2007 at 7:23 am
Just because it is anonymous does not mean things are not true. The violations are real as my coach met with us this winter to talk about some things.
July 30th, 2007 at 8:56 am
I was at the alumni golf tournament last weekend and found out a little bit about it — reasons for Cathy Pohle’s firing are vague at best. Certainly, she didn’t deserve it…in four years, she took the women’s team to 10th place in the nation and was named Regional NCAA Division III Coach of the Year! Certainly sounds like a fireable performance to me!
Rick, her husband, resigned as the men’s golf coach when reasons for Cathy’s firing were not forthcoming. He had been the men’s golf coach for 27 years! The men’s golf team has a rich tradition of being coached by the pro at Taconic — in fact, in over 60 years, the golf team has had 3 coaches! This whole thing sounds absurd. Would love to hear more if people know more.
July 30th, 2007 at 10:30 am
Kind of a disturbing pattern developing of highly successful coaches being fired for cryptic and/or marginal reasons … the current athletic administration is going to lose the faith of the bulk of the alums soon, if they haven’t already, unless some very good reasons for what has been going on come to light. Williams has traditionally had incredible stability among the coaching ranks, and in the last few months the men’s and women’s track and field, golf, and tennis head coaches have all quit or been dismissed. And these are six of the programs that have accounted for a huge percentage of Williams’ Sears Cup points (and so far as I have heard, have featured academically successful, model student-athletes on the teams). Now, some of this could just be coincidental timing, but it does seem like something larger is going on here. What is most disturbing is that all of the alumni griping and discord regarding the handling of the White situation not only had no affect whatsoever on the White decision itself, but apparently has had no impact whatsoever on how the administration decided to handle subsequent coaching decisions.
July 30th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Not only is this happening in the coaching ranks but with the faculty. Morty and Wagner are far removed from the faculty and consider themselves above everyone else.
Too much power?
July 30th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
What evidence do you have that “Morty and Wagner are far removed from the faculty”? Given that until last year, Wagner very much was one of the faculty, this seems like an odd claim. We’re not talking about people who have been in the administration for 20 years here like at some other schools.
July 30th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
Apparently Rick Pohle, Cathy’s husband, resigned shortly thereafter. Great call by the College on this one. Did Cathy not have her Master’s? I can’t figure this one out.
July 30th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
It’s interesting that none of the violations came from track, golf, or tennis. The violations that were cited in a staff meeting came from the “high-profile” sports, yet track, golf, and tennis are gone, and all the others are back.
Hmmm what exactly is going on in the Williams athletic department? It all seems EXCEEDINGLY fishy.
July 30th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
There is a rumor that Dave Johnson, who recently resigned from tennis, will take over as AD next year and Harry Sheehy will be reassigned. Harry has had too many mistakes in his short time.
It appears there are a lot of issues in the Nike camp and it is about time something is done about it. A good place to begin would be to stop taking some of the tips that are not qualified.
July 31st, 2007 at 1:03 am
^ Channeling Prof. Shanks?
July 31st, 2007 at 1:30 am
God, one has to love this little chorus of voices in the anonymous dark. A stab! A parry! And vanishing once more.
July 31st, 2007 at 2:31 am
Craven, irresponsible and lacking credibility.
July 31st, 2007 at 9:23 am
It’s amusing how upset some people here get about anonymous postings. For all intents and purposes, all of these postings are anonymous because we have no way of verifying who any of these people really are (at least from the postings themselves, there’s certainly digital detective work that can pretty easily find the answers). But more importantly, Frank, is that sometimes people post anonymously because they have real information that they know certain people don’t want out there and thus could possibly hurt them if they gave their names. Do you turn off the TV news or stop reading an article every time it says, “sources in the Justice Department,” etc.? Of course not.
July 31st, 2007 at 9:48 am
Well, on TV when they say “sources in the Justice Department” you can be fairly sure that the source actually is in the justice department, because the reporter knows their identity even if you don’t. In contrast, there’s usually no way to know if anonymous online posters are credible; the only analogous situation would be if someone emailed David a tip and asked him to post it.
July 31st, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Wait, so is Max Factor your real name? Because unless it is, you are a bit of a hypocritical wanker, stabbing, parrying, vanishing and all that. If it is, you have the coolest name EVER, Mr. Factor.
dcat (Or Derek, or Derek Catsam)
July 31st, 2007 at 12:52 pm
At any rate my actual name is Frank Uible, and if you don’t like what I have said, I will not have stabbed you in the back about it, and I will have given you the opportunity to come around and try to punch me in the nose. It will be appreciated if you would do the same for me. I was neither born nor raised on the playing fields of Eton, but with respect to one’s reputation the sandlots and Italian-American and black enclaves of the City of Cleveland most probably served similarly.
August 17th, 2007 at 8:43 am
I would just like to say that I am embarrassed for Williams College firing Cathy Pohle, is equivalent to The University of Florida firing Billy Donovan….the college just seems like its getting way to snooty now….very embarrassing for what once was a very prestigious school.