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Holland goes public with
reply to acid e-mail
From ECU and staff
reports
East Carolina athletic
director Terry Holland — chastised in some quarters in the wake of his
announcement last week that Pirates basketball coach Bill Herrion had
been asked to accept a reassignment at the end of the season to a
position elsewhere in the department — has countered one biting critic
with a public response.
| To view ECU AD Terry
Holland's post on the school's official athletic
department Website,
please click here. |
|
Holland posted an open
reply on the school's official website on Sunday to a harshly-worded
e-mail message he received in the wake of attending Saturday night's
East Carolina-Houston. The sender of the message, who identified himself
as an ECU alumnus (class of '80), lambasted Holland on a number of
fronts.
Following is the text of
the entire post, including the sender's message and Holland's response,
from ecupirates.com:
An Open Response From
Terry Holland
02/27/2005
East Carolina Director of
Athletics Terry Holland responds openly to an e-mail about last week's
developments regarding the men's basketball program.
The letter and response
are both unedited.
Lord Holland, I just want
to let you know how embarrassed I am as an alumni of this university to
let an ACC reject such as yourself come in with your hatchet and dismiss
a man such as Bill Herrion who has poured his blood and guts into this
program for 6 years. And you're such a hippocrite. You speak at the
Pirate Club Banquet last night about class and how wins and losses are
secondary to doing the job right, graduating players, etc. Then you're
in your little corner at the game tonight clapping for Bill Herrion
along with HIS fans as he leaves the floor. I saw you. Fire him, then
clap for him. And to do it with 3 games left in the season. I thought
the kids came first. I'm sure you are happy we lost tonight, now if we
lose next Saturday night and miss the tourney you can have your new
coach in place from the ACC next Monday morning. What a cush job, come
in and get paid $275, 000 a year, bring this university down and ride
off into the sunset. I don't know if this Pirate can take 4 more years
of this. Of course , all the high dollar Pirate Clubbers love it,
cozying up to you like you are the annointed one. As I close, I'll utter
the famous last words REMEMBER CHAMINADE.
Bryan
Class of '80
Bryan:
Not sure what I can say to
an e-mail filled with this much bitterness and attempt to intimidate but
I will give it my best effort as I try to do with all others.
The job which I was hired
to do does pay about the same thing our basketball coach gets paid and a
bit less than the former and current football coach get paid and a whole
lot less than the football coach before that was paid. It has been my
observation that each of those folks (and quite a few others who make
less than 10% of that amount) have poured their "blood and guts" into
ECU's athletic program daily.
If you were happy with
East Carolina's athletic program and likely future in Division I-A
athletics when I arrived, then I must apologize that this "ACC reject"
has come in and changed your comfort level.
As essentially the "head
coach" of the athletic department, it is my job to attempt to put our
team members in the position where they can help this department and the
university the most over the next five or six critical years.
While I am not a
basketball genius (as illustrated by UVA's loss to Chaminade), I am
smart enough to know that I am not a genius and lucky enough to be able
to call on some pretty good basketball minds for help. In fact,
Chaminade's former coach is a good friend and would be available to take
either my job or the basketball job if you would feel more comfortable
with that.
After promising wins over
Pepperdine and Oregon State to open the season, our team had won only
four Division I games versus 17 losses. Each game had become a "life or
death" affair for our coaching staff and our team members. While
"pressure to win" can provide a healthy motivational factor over short
periods of time, over the longer period it can do great emotional damage
to those fighting so hard and so valiantly to win each game.
It was my opinion that the
"unhealthy" side of that pressure to win was dramatically impacting all
the individuals in our program and that this pressure to win was likely
to increase greatly over the remaining games and into the next season.
Coach Herrion had
repeatedly asked Nick and me to be honest and up-front with him as we
evaluated what the future held for our basketball program. Therefore, we
met with Coach Herrion to ask him to start thinking of accepting another
position in our athletic department after the season concluded.
We had hoped that by
letting Coach Herrion know that we wanted him on our team for the long
term that some of the pressure he felt would be relieved. If that
happened, then we hoped the team might finish the season as strongly as
it began the season and Coach Herrion would be leaving coaching on a
high note.
We asked Coach to think it
over before responding and to keep the conversation between the three of
us private until the season ended or until he thought it was appropriate
to discuss it further with others.
So far the best thing
about ECU has been that the "high dollar Pirate Clubbers" and other
people in a position to attempt to influence what happens in our
athletic department have allowed the athletic professionals to do their
jobs. You are one of the very few ECU people who have attempted to
intimidate me or anyone else into sharing your view by calling me names
or using political clout. Your response is more like the ones that I
have gotten from fans of other schools who did not like me "calling them
out" about playing ECU in Greenvillle.
I have had a number of
people who have presented logical arguments about the possibility of
continuing our current direction in basketball in order to see what
happens in a "weaker" C-USA. However, I am unwilling to believe or
accept that the most likely way for us to improve our athletic program
is to compete against lesser opponents. It does not take a genius to
figure out where that path would lead us. Taking that path because it is
the easy one or the comfortable one would be very dangerous for ECU
athletics today.
So, I will continue to
"clap" and cheer for Bill Herrion and our team, regardless of what names
you call me for doing so, and I will continue to make the best decisions
I am capable of making for ECU's long term best interest until someone
else is called to do this for ECU.
Terry Holland
Page updated:
02/23/07 11:44 AM
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Bonesville.net. All
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from
ECU Athletics and staff reports.
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