cabbie191
Jonathan Husky on a date with Holi
- Joined
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Two points:
First: One of my aunts, a retired professor, had Alzheimer's. Incredibly slow and painful ride into the darkness, and for the life of me, I have no clue retrospectively when the first signs showed up. I can believe that the early signs will be missed, or ignored, or ascribed to some other cause, because many people do change as they become elderly. We are dealing with this now with my father-in-law, aged 86. We're pretty sure he has had some mini-strokes because he isn't firing on the same number of cylinders as he used to. But perhaps this will turn out to be something else, like Alzheimer's.
Second: And before I proceed with this point, I need to make two caveats because I don't want to be pounced on as being politically insensitive or incorrect.
A) I don't know how "iron-fisted" or "dominating" Pat was within the politics of the Tennessee athletic departments and administration. She clearly was a very powerful person but whether those who she worked with her ever "feared" to cross her is an unknown to me. But I absolutely believe she had a lot more sway in the University than most of her peers did with their respective institutions.
B) No matter how strong a personality Pat may have been, and no matter how much power she may have had within the University of Tennessee, I would never equate her essence and being with that of a tyrant. A perfect saint? No, but if you take out what happened at the end with her relationship with UConn, generally a pretty good person. We need to remember that in the beginning of the relationship between two universities, she was as gracious and helpful to UConn as Geno now is to other schools trying to establish better programs.
Now to the point, which gets to the issue of whether someone at the University should have said "These accusations don't make sense, I don't recognize the Pat Summitt behind this, and we should be proceeding with more caution."
History is replete with examples of powerful people (and unfortunately, what comes to mind initially as examples are some of history's worst dictators) who clearly, after they achieved that power, developed absolutely clear signs of mental deterioration. Hitler, Amin, Franco. Yet most their subordinates, out of a combination of fear as well as inertia, went along with the madness, never questioning the insanity that ensued.
So I can imagine that with a very powerful coach, and no clear signs of physical or mental health issues, it would be natural for others at the University to not question the accusations that were brought forth against UConn. Perhaps in hindsight a dereliction of duty, but in my opinion also understandable given the current situation they were in.
First: One of my aunts, a retired professor, had Alzheimer's. Incredibly slow and painful ride into the darkness, and for the life of me, I have no clue retrospectively when the first signs showed up. I can believe that the early signs will be missed, or ignored, or ascribed to some other cause, because many people do change as they become elderly. We are dealing with this now with my father-in-law, aged 86. We're pretty sure he has had some mini-strokes because he isn't firing on the same number of cylinders as he used to. But perhaps this will turn out to be something else, like Alzheimer's.
Second: And before I proceed with this point, I need to make two caveats because I don't want to be pounced on as being politically insensitive or incorrect.
A) I don't know how "iron-fisted" or "dominating" Pat was within the politics of the Tennessee athletic departments and administration. She clearly was a very powerful person but whether those who she worked with her ever "feared" to cross her is an unknown to me. But I absolutely believe she had a lot more sway in the University than most of her peers did with their respective institutions.
B) No matter how strong a personality Pat may have been, and no matter how much power she may have had within the University of Tennessee, I would never equate her essence and being with that of a tyrant. A perfect saint? No, but if you take out what happened at the end with her relationship with UConn, generally a pretty good person. We need to remember that in the beginning of the relationship between two universities, she was as gracious and helpful to UConn as Geno now is to other schools trying to establish better programs.
Now to the point, which gets to the issue of whether someone at the University should have said "These accusations don't make sense, I don't recognize the Pat Summitt behind this, and we should be proceeding with more caution."
History is replete with examples of powerful people (and unfortunately, what comes to mind initially as examples are some of history's worst dictators) who clearly, after they achieved that power, developed absolutely clear signs of mental deterioration. Hitler, Amin, Franco. Yet most their subordinates, out of a combination of fear as well as inertia, went along with the madness, never questioning the insanity that ensued.
So I can imagine that with a very powerful coach, and no clear signs of physical or mental health issues, it would be natural for others at the University to not question the accusations that were brought forth against UConn. Perhaps in hindsight a dereliction of duty, but in my opinion also understandable given the current situation they were in.
