Earlier this year, the University Of Montana student paper covered the story of a pair of the school’s football players being accused of assaulting a fellow student. In the days and weeks since, writes the Missoulian’s Chelsi Moy, “the UM football team has proved it’s good at another game – the silent treatment.”
In recent weeks, head coach Bobby Hauck (above) has publicly belittled Kaimin reporters at weekly news conferences, and followed through with an earlier threat of shutting the students out of interviews. Now, the football athletes are no longer speaking to the student reporters either – a silence the Kaimin believes Hauck ordered.
At a recent weekly news conference, a Kaimin reporter asked Hauck whether he was going to continue rotating quarterbacks.”You want something from me now?” replied Hauck. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
A Missoulian sportswriter immediately followed up with the same question, to which Hauck provided an answer.
At the following week’s news conference, the Kaimin reporter again asked a question – this one on how the Grizzly defense would defend against the speed of an opposing running back.
Hauck’s reply: “I’ll give you this, you’re persistent. Who’s next?”
After a recent practice, a student reporter asked a question of a player, who replied that he “wasn’t allowed to talk to the Kaimin,” the school newspaper reported.
Hauck refused to be interviewed for this story when contacted by the Missoulian.
Hauck and his assistant coaches earn more than a combined half million dollars a year. It’s kind of amazing to think one of the state’s more high profile educators considers his program so above reproach, there’s no obligation to engage in a dialogue with the same students whose tutions are (partially) paying his salary.
The Kaimen’s been a rag since I walked the halls of UofM, when they’d gleefully expose any character flaw in anyone they didn’t like at the moment. Hauck isn’t “suffering” – he’s enjoying one of his best seasons. Just as the press may pry, so may we kick you off our porches. The Griz football program takes on the look and feel of its bigger brothers day by day, and in many of those programs Hauck’s cold shoulder would be seen as the high road. Grow up.
I don’t know what is more pathetic – this coach, his program and his behavior, or his nuthugger apologists.
OK news babes. You want to get snarky? You think you have some kind of right to have everyone answer whatever you ask? So, let me ask this: how is all that working for you? And about the money thing – how much revenue do you bring in to the school? I thought so.
Compensation is akin to a commission. If you bring in a lot you get paid a lot and the puny, insignificant sum Montana pays Hauck is laughable. Boise State pays Chris Peterson over a million. That is because he brings in $MILLIONS. How much does some English Lit instructor bring in to the school? OK- that is why he gets $65K. It is time to grow up kids.