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Highlights from Rachel's days in college include having a class down the hall from Chase Daniel and having NCAA wrestling champion Ben Askren hold the door open for her at Brady Commons, Mizzou's student center. She spent time covering Mizzou basketball, softball and baseball while working for the Columbia Missourian and is excited to return home to Southeast Missouri to cover local sports for semoball.com.
Rachel has covered three Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournaments for the Southeast Missourian and semoball.com, and she'll see you courtside again this year.
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COLUMN: 'No comment' press release more surprising than Samuel's release
Southeast Missouri State athletic director Mark Alnutt issued a press release Tuesday afternoon that said he "plans to replace" football coach Tony Samuel, who just led the Redhawks to another abysmal 3-9 season.
As far as shocking moves go, this was the polar opposite. Samuel was 31-60 in eight seasons, he never settled on a quarterback this year, couldn't find a kicker reliable enough to kick extra points and inspired little hope for the future.
Alnutt made what most would conclude was the obvious decision. Of course, firing someone isn't a pleasant task and Alnutt seems like a nice guy. I'm sure there was no joy in the process. Several assistants almost certainly will be looking for work as well, so if Alnutt were to say that it was a difficult decision to make, even with the lack of success on the field, I'd probably believe him.
But Alnutt won't talk publicly about the decision. He won't talk to anyone -- or at least that's what he said in the press release he had a member of his staff write.
"There will be no further public comment on this matter until we welcome our next head coach at Southeast Missouri State University," Alnutt said, or at least was typed as saying, in the release.
We're not talking about protecting secrets or confidentially or the reputation of some 19-year-old athlete who violated "team rules" here.
We're talking about a school administrator who just made a very public decision to fire a high-profile coach. Most would call a press conference. Alnutt lets his staff tell us he won't be available for interviews.
When Samuel's predecessor Tim Billings resigned near the end of his contract in 2005, then athletic director Don Kaverman spoke openly to the Missourian about the challenges the program had overcome and still had to face, about how he had addressed the team and outlined the process that would be used to find a replacement.
As best I can tell, the members of the current football team found out about Samuel's firing on Twitter like most of the rest of us.
When Kaverman was placed on administrative leave in 2008, signaling the end of his time at Southeast, university President Dr. Kenneth W. Dobbins answered questions.
Press conferences were held when former men's basketball coach Gary Garner's contract was not renewed and when baseball coach Mark Hogan retired.
The university issued a much more understandable "no further comments" statement when it fired embattled basketball coach Scott Edgar, who was being investigated by the NCAA.
Maybe this doesn't seem all that important to some of you, but let me explain why it is.
Here's another line quoted as being from Alnutt in the press release: "I appreciate the long-standing dedication and support of the Redhawks community as we move forward with our search for a new head coach."
Again, Alnutt's a friendly guy. I've enjoyed talking to him when I've had the chance. I can imagine him saying this with a smile, and I don't find it hard to believe that he genuinely means it.
But that community he would like to thank probably has a few questions today -- maybe something about the qualities he hopes to find in a new coach, maybe about when he hopes the process will be over, maybe about how the university will foot the bill for Samuel's six-figure buyout while simultaneously paying for a new coach, maybe about something else.
And maybe the biggest boosters will get a chance to ask him those questions at some formal gathering or when they see him out at a basketball game and he inevitability greets them with a smile and a handshake.
But certainly there will be plenty of members of the community -- fans, alumni, boosters and even players -- hoping to hear from Alnutt. When he says no to talking to us, he says no to talking to them. That's true whether he wants it to be or not.
This is the second time this month Southeast has issued a press release saying there would be no comment on a topic.
The athletic department released a statement saying men's basketball player A.J. Jones had withdrawn from the university and left the team on Nov. 8 -- the same day the team opened the season.
I know that release, which was emailed to media, said no one from the university would be commenting further, but I went back to get the exact words only to find the press release either has been deleted from or never has been posted to the athletic department's official website.
That situation was remarkably strange. It raised a lot of questions. What player withdraws from the university on the day a season starts? What would lead a person to do that?
It's really no surprise that Alnutt and men's basketball coach Dickey Nutt don't want to talk about it, although it only leads to assumptions that there is information they'd rather the public not have.
There are no such assumptions in the case of the firing of Tony Samuel. Alnutt made an easily understood decision. I can't fathom there's anything to hide or that anything he could say would be inflammatory. It's just not a complicated situation.
Yet he's staying quiet.
When Alnutt was hired in April of last year, he said he'd heard wonderful things about the Cape Girardeau community and that he wanted to build relationships "in the campus, the community, the region."
"You're in a position to be able to raise awareness, resources," Alnutt said to the Missourian. "It's about being a leader, taking us to the next level not just in the Ohio Valley Conference but from a national standpoint."
He also said people should expect for him to be a public figure.
"I have a lot of passion for what I do. I'm a people person," he said. "I don't feel like you can get the job done from behind your desk."
Perhaps he can start delivering his pre-written press releases in person.
Rachel Crader is sports editor of the Southeast Missourian.
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First, I don't want to attack his job, at least not as a whole. Maybe this seems impossible, but I genuinely like the guy and I hope he succeeds. Obviously I'm not a fan of his choices handling Samuel's firing, but that doesn't mean I think everything he's ever done has been wrong.
I actually agree that this isn't a big deal, which is what makes it a big deal. I tried to point it out in the column, but if he's not willing to talk about something as simple this -- a very non-controversial topic that, as a leader, should be easy to explain, what will he be willing to talk about?
You're point about the Patriots and Cardinals may have some overall merit, but neither one of those organization would change their coach/manager without a press conference. But obviously it's difficult to make exact comparisons between two of the best organizations in pro sports and the Southeast athletic department.
Of course Mark has the "right" not to talk to me. I have to right to think it's silly in this case, and I do. It's just such a simple thing to talk about that I find it far more concerning from a journalistic standpoint than I would if he was giving the preemptive stiff arm on something like an internal investigation or something serious. I don't know what he'll be willing to talk about if he won't talk about his.
I attacked a how he publicly handled the firing of Tony Samuel. I didn't attack the decision to fire Tony Samuel or any other decision he's made. I think he made a bad choice here, but that doesn't not mean I think all of his choices are bad.
As a general statement to all, since I won't be able to reply to comments again until later tonight:
I've gotten many more tweets, emails and texts of support than negative comments here. Take that for what it's worth.
I also missed out on a chance to expand on a point earlier that I'd like to go back to. I couldn't go into great detail in the column because I had no details to offer, but this is important.
Alnutt is the AD at a public university funded by public dollars -- not the general manager or president of a private institution or privately owned professional sports team. Yesterday he made a decision that will cost the university about $150,000 in the next 30 days. It will cost the university even more when he hires a new coach for a team very few show up to watch on a regular basis.
I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't ask about the logistics and the impact of these kinds of decisions. To be clear, I'm not saying Alnutt made the right or wrong choice and there are facts I don't have.
But getting those facts, or making sure the Southeast Missourian staff gets them, is my job, and I'll continue to do that job.
In reality it's not a very good comparison, but here goes.
First, transparency is an important part of journalism, and it's a word I've seen thrown around a few times. The Missourian absolutely owes it's readers transparency in its journalism -- in how facts are collected, in how information is known and sometimes in how decisions about news coverage is made, among other things. That kind of transparency is paramount to our business. However, employees of the Missourian are still entitled to their own personal privacy, which is what I and the Missourian must uphold in the case of Marty Mishow's departure, regardless of anyone's wishes.
Second, Mark Alnutt is not employed by a private company such as the Southeast Missourian. If he were, I would not be asking about his employment decisions unless there were some sort of newsworthy special circumstances that I can't imagine at the momemt. If I asked him and he said no, that'd be fine. As I probably should've made a bigger deal of in the column, he's an administrator at a public university.
Third, the Missourian doesn't make any of it's personnel changes public. I can't imagine many people care who comes and goes around here. But in any case, the comparison of a football coach at a DI school and a newspaper reporter is silly. Perhaps that's unfair, but it's the way it is and there's no changing that. That being said, Marty Mishow had obviously been around for a long time and many people know his name and face, which raises the level of interest some amount. I cannot address him any further, but as I would hope Alnutt would do at some point, I'd be happy to talk about plans for the future. Addressing the comings and goings of coaches is certainly something that has been done by his predecessors.
Fourth, while this column focuses in on Alnutt's decision not to do interviews about Samuel, I had hoped to make the larger picture clear. This decision was a simple one to explain compared to others Alnutt may need to make during his time as AD. I can't imagine there's any sensitive information to conceal. We're not interested in a detailed account of any of Samuel's failings. So if he won't talk about this very simple thing, what on earth will he talk about? If he can't stand up behind this decision and share his vision for the program at this time, when the program's fans probably need it most, when can he stand up behind a decision. It's the beginning of a pattern that is not healthy from an accountability standpoint.