An Ohio University Administrative Senate grievance committee has recommended that the university lift the suspension of an assistant wrestling coach and reinstate him in his job. The coach, Kyle Hansen, was suspended with pay, effective Oct. 9, as a result of his arrest for operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol last August.
In recommending that Hansen instead be kept on probation while coaching, the three-member committee suggested that he was held to a harsher standard than other university employees arrested for OVI.
The university’s tough handling of Hansen’s case has been contrasted with the more lenient handling of head football coach Frank Solich’s drunken-driving case late last year. Solich, who plead no contest and was convicted of OVI, was placed on probation by the university, while Hansen was suspended, even though his criminal case is still pending in Athens County Municipal Court.
An ESPN program, “Outside the Lines, “examined the two OU cases in a program last Thursday, and a guest sports columnist for The Athens NEWS discusses the situation in a column in today’s issue (page 15).
University officials could not be reached for comment yesterday.
According to the grievance committee, “the actions taken by the university in suspending Mr. Hansen circumvented his legal process by suggesting that Mr. Hansen was ‘guilty until proven innocent’ rather than the basis of our legal system, which is innocent until proven guilty.”
The committee also “found no evidence that Athletics Department employees should be held to a different standard than all other OU employees.”
The university came under pressure to crack down on student-athletes, and by extension their coaches, earlier this fall after The Athens NEWS and Columbus Dispatch publicized the large number of athletes – mainly football players – who had gotten into legal trouble in recent months.
In addition to claiming his case was handled differently from those of other employees – and by implication Solich – Hansen charged that his suspension contradicted prior agreements that had placed him on probation. The grievance committee report appears to support this claim.
Hansen’s attorney, K. Robert Toy of Athens, in a cover letter attached to the grievance committee’s report, predicts that OU “will not reinstate Kyle Hansen because it would violate Ohio University’s apparent new motto which seems to be – ‘what is the sense in having power, unless you can abuse it.”
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