State Ethics Office Rules Corey Edsall Can Coach Only This Year At UConn; Ethics Laws Broken

[Drew]

Randy Edsall's son will coach tight ends for his father for one football season at UConn, despite new findings by the state's ethics office that the arrangement violates bans against nepotism and a father helping to negotiate a contract for his son.

Ethics lawyers are recommending that the state ethics board take no action against Randy Edsall or UConn, and that Corey Edsall be kept in the $95,000-per-year job for this coming season — as long as the one-year pact is not renewed.

The ethics board recognizes the "potential disruption" to UConn's football program if Corey Edsall were prohibited from coaching this year, the draft opinion states. It will be presented to the state's citizen ethics advisory board at its July 20 meeting.

The opinion notes that it isn't unusual across the county for sons to coach in their father's major-college football programs, but states that Connecticut isn't willing to overlook the nepotism clause in the state ethics code to allow that to happen in this instance.

The draft opinion rejects UConn's assertions that it was proper for Randy Edsall to negotiate details of the job for his son, concluding that Edsall was a state employee on Dec. 28, the date he and UConn executed his contract. Edsall's renewed relationship with UConn began when he received and accepted the offer, the ethics lawyers found.

http://www.courant.com/news/connect...sall-son-ethics-violation-20170714-story.html

 

[gwhuskyfan]

What a joke

 

[Exit 4]

This makes me want to puke....especially because he has quickly demonstrated himself to be perhaps the most effective recruiter we have in a little over 6 months.

Can't he apply for the TE position again next year?
Or can he divorce his dad?

 

[huskymedic]

This will bring you to story - Link above no workee:


Backstory for those who need catching up: [Updated] Office Of State Ethics Questioning Corey Edsall's Employment At UConn (M. Anthony)

This State can't get out of it's own freaking way @ times.

 

[UConnStats]

Beyond stupid

 

[HuskyBandDad]

Morons. No wonder this State is in trouble

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

I can't even fathom how stupid this is.

 

[2Infinity]

This State can't get out of it's own freaking way @ times.

Exactly the point Medic. This state finally gets it's flagship university's football program back on track and they are all concerned about some incredibly obscure state reg. to knock the coach's son out of the program!? This is from a state whose leaders routinely violate ethics regs, which somehow are overlooked, or not even investigated. Tis is truly absurd!

 

[huskymedic]

Need a UConn Sports friendly Legislator to exempt /carve out qualified coaching staff hires moving forward:

>>The opinion notes that it isn't unusual across the county for sons to coach in their father's major-college football programs, but states that Connecticut isn't willing to overlook the nepotism clause in the state ethics code to allow that to happen in this instance.<<

>>The draft ruling notes that it is common for football coaches at major colleges to employ their sons on their staffs but that many of those coaches have said they were given "special permission."We don't have the statutory authority to grant such "special permission" in this instance, nor do we have the inclination to participate in what amounts to a 'wink-and-a-smile' at the Code's conflict rules," the draft ruling states.<<

It should only be about qualifications not genes.

 

[MASSconn]

Everyone in Hartford should be fired. SMALL TIME.

Maybe they should have spent more time on Aetna, GE and the failing city of Hartford rather than this.

 

[2Infinity]

I didn't read the entire story, but did they comment on Corey's answering to someone other than his father? I thought Benedict and company did that to assure complicity with the state's ethics issues. If his job reviews are conducted by another lead official in the athletic dept., doesn't that take a good part of the potential nepotism argument away?

 

[Drew]

I didn't read the entire story, but did they comment on Corey's answering to someone other than his father? I thought Benedict and company did that to assure complicity with the state's ethics issues. If his job reviews are conducted by another lead official in the athletic dept., doesn't that take a good part of the potential nepotism argument away?

The ethics office legal division did not learn that UConn had hired Corey Edsall until reading it in The Hartford Courant on Jan. 9.

Subsequently, Fearney told the ethics office that "initial decisions" regarding Corey Edsall's salary, as well as his supervision and job evaluations, would be "dictated by the Director of Athletics or his designee" — who was "not subordinate" to the head coach.

But the new opinion also rejects UConn's contention that Randy Edsall would not be directly supervising his son or his son's immediate supervisor, the offensive coordinator. Such direct supervision of a family member would be a conflict of interest, according to state law.

"UConn's assertion that its Head Football Coach will refrain from supervising (and evaluating) not just the tight ends coach, but also his offensive coordinator is, to quote a former Supreme Court Justice, 'so absurd as to be self-refuting,'" the opinion states.

The draft ruling notes that it is common for football coaches at major colleges to employ their sons on their staffs but that many of those coaches have said they were given "special permission."

"We don't have the statutory authority to grant such "special permission" in this instance, nor do we have the inclination to participate in what amounts to a 'wink-and-a-smile' at the Code's conflict rules," the draft ruling states.

 

[DSquiz]

I didn't read the entire story, but did they comment on Corey's answering to someone other than his father? I thought Benedict and company did that to assure complicity with the state's ethics issues. If his job reviews are conducted by another lead official in the athletic dept., doesn't that take a good part of the potential nepotism argument away?

That apparently wasn’t the problem but how Corey was hired. It's illegal for a father to negotiate a contract for his son which Edsall apparently did during the hiring process. UConn argued that Edsall was already a state employee at the time meaning it wasn’t during the hiring process, the state disagreed. Its super nitpicky on the states side and really too bad. Corey seemed awesome from what I saw on Twitter, very excited and supportive of the program.

 

[HuskyBandDad]

So can Benedict just negotiate and hire him next year?

 

[LRock34]

Only in Connecticut, the home of taxes and government regulation.

 

[ShakyTheMohel]

Let's hope that this ruling is based more on the fact that they didn't know until after it happened, and with a year to figure this out they can come up with a plan to make this right.

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

UConn and RE handled this one poorly but really, this is a giant nothingburger. He's a legitimate coach, he wasn't given some do-nothing position just to collect a paycheck while he twiddles his thumbs in an empty office.

 

[sportsart]

We all know nepotism never happens with state employees right? joke.

 

[CTBballfan243]

Maybe he just needs to get paid from a different pool of money (not State of Connecticut Money). Use private donations to the athletic department to pay his salary.

 

[Milo65]

I really wish that our State Government would deal with REAL issues in Hartford and stop creating more and more red tape!

 

[ConnHuskBask]

This makes sense because the biggest problem in Connecticut right now is a qualified state employee making $95k.

Really big picture stuff going up up there.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

We all know nepotism never happens with state employees right? joke.

How many state gov jobs go the most qualified candidate? It's never based on anything like who's uncle in influential in the governor's office (sarcasm off). Sometimes I really think the legislature has a hard on the UConn athletics. And not in a good way.

 

[Waquoit]

We all know nepotism never happens with state employees right? joke.

Isn't that why they have rules like this in place?

 

[CL82]

So can Benedict just negotiate and hire him next year?

No because the opinion makes a determination that HCRE2 is his de facto supervisor regardless of the organization chart.

@huskymedic has it right, just have the state legislature carve out an exception to the state ethic guidelines. It would need to be carefully worded so as not to make it too broad.

 

[2Infinity]

That apparently wasn’t the problem but how Corey was hired. It's illegal for a father to negotiate a contract for his son which Edsall apparently did during the hiring process. UConn argued that Edsall was already a state employee at the time meaning it wasn’t during the hiring process, the state disagreed. Its super nitpicky on the states side and really too bad. Corey seemed awesome from what I saw on Twitter, very excited and supportive of the program.

If what you're saying is how the state is thinking, then at what point after RE was hired would it have been alright to hire Corey? I don't think it would have been ever. That alone shows how archaic the state's thinking is here. As Brass pointed out above, Corey IS doing his job and is a legitimate coach. What the state is saying appears to be that no one can ever work for a family member in a state position. That's insane. With proper safeguards in place, as UConn has put in, this should not be the case.

Perhaps we should ask for an audit of all summer internships in our state government. Think we'd find anyone familial ties to current politicians?? If so, why are those legal and this isn't?