Questions loom within men’s basketball program

Commentary by Chris Raimondi, Sports Editor

This past week showcased an incredible juxtaposition within the Kennesaw State athletics department.

The KSU football team reached their high point of the last two years with the culmination of the Black and Gold spring game, something head coach Brian Bohannon, his staff, the search committee and the players have worked tirelessly to build.

While a community came together Saturday, I witnessed a bleaker side of KSU athletics.

Men’s basketball head coach Jimmy Lallathin was seemingly released last week by the athletics department, but a second statement released during the Black and Gold game corrected the media in saying he has been “reassigned.” There is also a review of the program taking place.

The media in attendance at the spring game (myself, John Bednarowski, sports editor of the Marietta Daily Journal and Doug Roberson of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution) was pulled from the press box and brought to an empty suite in Fifth Third Bank Stadium.

After our coverage of the game was interrupted, something we also waited two years anticipating, we asked what was under review and what Lallathin’s new role is. We were given nothing but terse, repetitive answers from Vaughn Williams, director of athletics. He refused to disclose what is under review and what Lallathin’s new position is. The meeting, much like the initial release, revealed nothing.

I remember a time when there was transparency between the KSU athletics department and the community that supports it. Those days, sadly, seem to be a thing of the past.

I’m saddened by the lack of preparedness from Williams and the entire department in releasing information regarding coaching personnel for men’s basketball. Never have I seen an athletics program make a “change in leadership” and not explain why such a high-profile change was made.

KSU’s former head coach Tony Ingle, now at Dalton State College, was let go in March 2011. When he was released, the athletics department wrote an entire article on the situation and remained completely transparent. The article still remains in the archives on KSUOwls.com.

After the latest men’s basketball coaching change, there have been two statements released over the span of one week with neither one more than a paragraph in length and neither offering any tangible insight as to what is happening.

If the athletics department isn’t under any scrutiny for whatever is happening with Lallathin, why aren’t they telling us what is going on? It looks like there has been a culture change.

Multiple media outlets including ESPN, the AJC, the MDJ and The Sentinel, as featured on last week’s cover, reported that Lallathin had been removed. We were childishly corrected by a three-sentence statement that offered no insight and a director of athletics that stood silent with no justification in regards to his most recent decision.

After leaving the empty suite, I was sitting in a press conference 30 minutes later with coach Bohannon while media members sounded off with questions about how it felt to finally take the field in Kennesaw. Bohannon acknowledged Williams’ support and delivered a passionate response of how proud he is of being at KSU.

It was weird for me, to say the least.