Dorn Suspended

[D_One_here_we_come]

This is part of the job if you work in college athletics. Dorn chose this profession, it has different standards\consequences. No one is complaining when there is good PR by the papers and news stations. It is a higher profile job, same as Mayor, police chief, ect. Anyone in that department can change profession and not have to worry about the media.

[1998braves64]

I wonder if NDSU thought it would make it out sooner than it did and they would have addressed it the same then too right? and when it didn't they were like well maybe nobody will ever find out about it. Obviously Forum would have been crying if they'd waited until after the suspension happened anyway. Is the atheletic dept emails open to open records laws? I would assume so since a reprimand is open to public? Anyways couldn't Forum put in a weekly or biweekly request for emails and scan them for scoop worthy news? Assuming it ever got mentioned in an email.

Anyways my theory is NDSU thought that it would make it out sooner so they never bothered making it public...figuring someone would pick up on the fact that Dorn hasn't been in the office for a few days...which turned into a week and a half. The Forum dropped the ball thereby making NDSU look bad by making it look like they were trying to cover this up. And jeepers it wasn't like she murdered someone and stuck them in the janitors closet, not trying to make light of what happened as it must have been fairly serious from the info we were given. But come on it could have been a comment or a brain freeze moment where she dropped her guard and said/did something that was inappropriate which I'm sure we all have done at some point or another in our lives and never were disciplined for it. I know I have for sure. NDSU probably could have saved face a little by just putting out a press release the day before and saying we will not be offering any further comment on this subject end of story.

[IzzyFlexion]

What a surprise! I humbly accept the BMEP award for 2012. Someone tell me where & when the awards dinner takes place, as my invitation got lost in the mail.

In order to avoid a "divide by zero" irony warp, we'll have to mail it to you.
Ya got one rule to follow on here Flip...............ONLY I am allowed to know who you really are. Well, me and Mr. E Brewer.

[NorthernBison]

The idiots at the Forum don't even know what a coverup is.

The most basic coverup needs to pass a minimum of 2 tests:

1. Did they HIDE the fact that Dorn was supsended?
2. Did they instruct NDSU employees to keep this a secret and tell nobody?

Oops! Many people knew and nobody got a gag order. You lose again Forum but that's not a problem. Most of your regular readers are not smart enough to figure it out. The smart ones have already cancelled their subscriptions and read the free content online.

I could think of a longer list but I've learned that lesson.

[Hammersmith]

The idiots at the Forum don't even know what a coverup is.

The most basic coverup needs to pass a minimum of 2 tests:

1. Did they HIDE the fact that Dorn was supsended?
2. Did they instruct NDSU employees to keep this a secret and tell nobody?

Oops! Many people knew and nobody got a gag order. You lose again Forum but that's not a problem. Most of your regular readers are not smart enough to figure it out. The smart ones have already cancelled their subscriptions and read the free content online.

I could think of a longer list but I've learned that lesson.

Yep, if this was a real cover-up, GT would never have put that letter of reprimand in her file. With ND sunshine laws being what they are, that was almost as good as a press release. If the Forum isn't regularly requesting the personnel files of the coaches, top ADs, deans, VPs, & pres at least twice a year, then they're bigger idiots than even we think they are.

I suspect one reason GT tried to keep this low key is that Dorn isn't that far away from retirement. In fact, I bet this incident(before the Forum got involved) moved up the timetable on that by a year or two. Now there's going to be pressure for her to be retired yet this year, and that's probably not in the best interest of NDSU and the student-athletes. Trying to replace her now would either result in a hasty search or a long-term interim replacement. And then there's the DeHoff mess on top of it. We've passed the window for firing her this year, and it might send a bad message if one of the first acts of a permanent replacement was to fire a coach. I would prefer to see Dorn fire DeHoff next year, hire the replacement(she's got a great track record there despite DeHoff), and then retire while giving GT plenty of time to find her replacement. That would seem to be the least disruptive sequence to the department, but I don't know if it's still an option after Grumpy, Sneezy, Dopey, and the rest of the dwarfs finish their tiff.

[Notorious]

It's called "manufacturing" news. All the quality, reputable, publications in the Walmart check-out line do it. If I owned "The Onion", I'd sue Forum Communications for copyright infringement....

Look for The Forum Special Sunday Section tomorrow!

[Ferd]

I can't get myself to be upset at NDSU over this. Here is my understanding:

1) Administrator does something inappropriate.
2) Other staff see this, feel it shouldn't be allowed to continue, and report it appropriately.
3) Officials meet with administrator, confirm inappropriate behavior and evaluate seriousness of actions, and assign a non-negligible penalty (at least, loosing 2 weeks of pay would be significant to me).
4) Administrator admits she did something wrong, accepts penalty without fighting it, apologizes to victim and to staff.
5) NDSU does not trumpet the situation from the rooftops, weighing the facts (as far as we know at least) that (a) nothing criminal happened, (b) no one is in danger, (c) the administrator has a long and positive history with NDSU, and (d) there isn't much they can say anyways.
6) When outside inquiries are made, NDSU immediately responds and releases all of the information it is allowed to release.

That whole series of events (other than number 1, of course) actually seems so appropriate and mature that I question how it happened at any entity associated with a government.

And nothing here looks or smells like a cover-up!!
Was NDSU supposed to contact the newspaper??? Maybe we should even write the story for them!! First thing I would do is look up the definition of coverup Sheez...

[Grizzled]

If this was at another school we'd all say it was a big deal. Since its here in Fargo, its really not a big deal. To be honest at work it was talked about for fifteen minutes, thats it. Moved on. How Gene handled it is pretty consistent with how other incidents with coaches have been handled in the past. If no one asks, nothing is brought up. Unfortunately in this case someone asked, so it had to be addressed.

As someone said earlier, if your making 6 figures in a public position, something like this is going to be news. Its part of the deal. I don't blame Gene for how he handled it but don't really feel sorry for Lynn that it was made public.

[Bison bison]

i don't 'feel sorry' for lynn, but the Forum had a giant picture of her on the front page of their rag.

i'd love for someone to compare the magnitude of this story with others.

[NDSUstudent]

I do grow tired of the Forum's laziness in covering NDSU and then they expect NDSU to hand them stories on silver a platter. Kolpack busts his ass but he is just one guy covering a huge beat, maybe if the Forum had multiple beat writers like another certain school in ND gets they would have found out this information sooner.