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Message: [QUOTE="CL82, post: 4339460, member: 44"] UConn coaches being a part of the faculty union is in artifact from the days of when coaches were required to teach as a part of their coaching duties. What happened in the Kevin Ollie case was that he had essentially two contracts. The first was the standard teachers union contract and the second was his contract as a coach. In the coaching contract it noted several specific grounds for termination that we considered just cause, including committing violations of NCAA or university policy, being aware of violations and not reporting them, and lying about violations to either the NCAA or the University of Connecticut. UConn relied on that provision to terminate Ollie for just cause. The arbiter said that both Kevin and UConn had no ability to modify the union contract and effectively wrote the language that UConn was relying upon out of the contract. UConn instead got forced into a more amorphous argument that the breach constituted a “serious“ violation under the union contract The arbiter ultimately decided that the violation wasn’t serious until the NCAA acted upon it. In essence, saying that Connecticut couldn’t fire Kevin until the NCAA had sanctioned him making it impossible for him to do his job. Of course, the failure to take action on the breach once it was discovered would have meant much more significant penalties from the NCAA against the University. So, in the arbiter’s world the University can’t fire someone until the NCAA sanctions them, but in the NCAA‘s world if the university were to continue to allow them to work until being sanctioned the school would be subject to a failure to monitor penalty. That’s one heck of a Catch 22. Removing coaches from the union contract would correct that problem. There are other ways that the issue could be addressed if this effort fails, but that’s risky since the University would remain subject to the whims of an arbiter’s interpretation. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach

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