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Down In The CountTurmoil surrounds Air Force baseball as dissent, intolerance allegations continueBy Dan Wolken, The Gazette (Colorado Springs), October 15, 2006 The Air Force Academy baseball team has been a mess on the field, posting a 25-131 record in Mike Hutcheon’s three seasons as coach. In 2006, the team had a 1-23 record and was outscored 380-114 in Mountain West Conference games, prompting athletic director Hans Mueh to ask the conference if Air Force could drop out of the conference in baseball. But the turmoil off the field has been every bit as bad, with a near mutiny in 2005. Some former players say winning became nearly impossible because of their antagonistic relationship with the coach, including what they describe as Hutcheon pushing his religious views or favoring players with similar outlooks. The Gazette identified 31 varsity players from the 2004, 2005 and 2006 seasons who either quit the team or were pushed out by Hutcheon. The coach denied that religion is a factor in how he treats players. He asserted that he played the best players and those who followed team and academy rules. The academy is dogged by accusations about religious intolerance, with a lawsuit pending. Academy leaders say they support Hutcheon. “We’ve really kind of concentrated on other things besides winning,” Hutcheon said. “More of the focus was on cleaning up the program internally and then winning would be a byproduct later. Winning was kind of third or fourth on our list at the time. We’re in year four, and we feel like we’re at a point now where our program is healthy. We’ve got guys who really buy into what our system’s about.” The Gazette spoke with more than a dozen former players and parents of others. Former players still at the academy, and others now serving in the Air Force who were interviewed for this story were granted anonymity because they feared being punished for speaking out. According to three former players, the discontent was so severe in 2005 that several players plotted a mutiny in which the team wouldn’t report to the bus for a road trip. The plan was ultimately nixed by seniors, who feared their involvement would impact their graduation. On May 1 of this year — the same day the academy announced Hutcheon had been given a new three-year contract — senior captain and starting pitcher Paul Pratt sent an e-mail to players’ parents asking them to write academy officials and urge that Hutcheon be fired. A copy of the e-mail was given to The Gazette. Hutcheon also got a copy of the e-mail, and Pratt was dismissed from the team the following day. Hutcheon then addressed the team about the e-mail, according to players in the meeting. They said Hutcheon asked the team if Pratt was a liar. At that point, three senior pitchers - Kyle DePierre, Paul Vignola and Clayton Couch - walked out of the meeting and quit the team in support of Pratt. Hutcheon denied asking if Pratt was a liar. “The question posed was if anyone feels the same way Paul does, do us all a favor and pack up your stuff and go on your way,” Hutcheon said. It was the third consecutive year at least one of Hutcheon’s captains quit the team or was dismissed during the middle of his senior season. That won’t happen in the 2007 season because Hutcheon said he’s not going to have a captain. “We didn’t have what we’d call good leaders on the team,” Hutcheon said. “Guys weren’t trained to be good leaders. We were trying to train guys to lead and how to take leadership in a proper way. “We tried to set an example of going through our leadership team instead of going through the captains, we were going through our staff, our coaches and military assistants. We had an idea of what we wanted to do, and maybe that wasn’t the same as what some guys wanted. Maybe there was some friction between the leadership teams, which we had to get rid of. This year, we don’t have any captains. We have what we call our core group of upper classmen. We’ll try to train them how to lead, the proper way of leading.” Hutcheon said his philosophy mirrored that of the academy and that some departing players did not want to follow it. Hutcheon estimated that about a third of the 31 players who left departed because of academic problems. He said some did not respect his authority. “We tried to base it on, ‘Are these guys going to be good officers?’” Hutcheon said. “We fought situations where guys were not responding to our coaching style, which to me is a direct reflection of disobeying authority or respecting authority. We had to come down on the team in that way.” Athletic director Mueh said he supports Hutcheon. “Mike Hutcheon is confident he’s turned this program and that he has people that want to play baseball, that want to win, that are past these biting issues, these mutinous feelings,” Mueh said. “It’s taken three years, and that doesn’t surprise me because he inherited a whole bucket of crap.” Nevertheless, Mueh later said of the many players who left the program, “There aren’t any of these players that I thought would not be great officers in the Air Force.” Intolerance Alleged
“He had a great reputation among the baseball community for character,” said Mueh, who was chairman of the search committee that selected Hutcheon. He was not athletic director at the time. The two previous coaching staffs had turmoil. “We needed somebody to come in here and say, ‘This is the way we’re going to run this program, with class and dignity and respect.’ ” When he got the job at Bethel in 1999, Hutcheon told the South Bend Tribune, “It’s a real ministry opportunity.” In one edition of his Air Force media guide biography, Hutcheon said, “The mission at the academy is similar to Bethel College. It is about so much more than winning and losing games.” Mueh said when Hutcheon arrived in October 2003, he was not given specific instructions about the difference between what’s acceptable regarding religious issues at Bethel, a private religious college, and the Air Force Academy, a government institution. “The climate of the academy is totally different now, and we’ve abided by what the academy said to do,” Hutcheon said. During the 2004 season, several former players said, there were repeated episodes of Christian evangelism, including: - Regularly holding team meetings that were not baseball-related but rather centered on prayer and Bible study. According to one former player, there were “20-30 mandatory prayer sessions” in 2004. “They were optional, but they were mandatory,” said another player. “It was one of those things where, if you didn’t go, you wouldn’t be on the good side of the coaches.” - Hutcheon directing players — even nonreligious players — to lead team prayers following games and practices. Four members of the 2004 team said it was common for Hutcheon to randomly select a player to lead a team prayer, which put the nonreligious in awkward positions. “There was a lot of pressure,” one player said. “When we’d pray on the field after practice, it was a team thing. But there were a couple guys who weren’t religious, who’d never prayed in their life before.” Hutcheon said in the first few weeks after he started in 2003, there were post-practice team prayers. He said the prayers were stopped after a few weeks because some players said they were uncomfortable. Hutcheon denied selecting players to lead prayers. “Coaches would stand back, and it was cadet-led,” Hutcheon said. “Coaches never led, and coaches never asked anybody to pray.” - Bringing a guest speaker with a Christian theme to a mandatory team meeting the night before a game in San Diego. “We thought it was going to be a meeting about how we’re going to play San Diego State the next day,” one player said. “Instead, it’s some guy talking about how his life was so hard and how he found Jesus.” Hutcheon said he didn’t know religion was going to be the guest speaker’s topic. “Maybe looking back on it, we should have had a little more background on the person and what they were going to say,” Hutcheon said. According to former players, Hutcheon changed his behavior after November 2004, when Air Force football coach Fisher DeBerry was instructed to remove a Christian-themed banner from the locker room, a story that made national headlines. “He pretty much stopped all of it,” one player said. But several other players said although Hutcheon adhered to the Air Force’s standards on religious expression the past two seasons, he showed preference for players who made their Christian beliefs known. “I’m a religious person, but I felt he pushed it upon people,” said a player who left the team, graduated and is serving in the Air Force. “It’s not supposed to be brought into a government activity. I came from a Catholic high school, so we prayed before games. But nobody signed up for that when they joined the Air Force baseball team.” Another former player said, “A lot of the players that were visibly and vocally nonreligious, even at times almost anti-religious, they definitely would kind of get the lashings if they did anything wrong. He’d be more harsh with them because they vocalized that they weren’t religious and didn’t believe in what coach was doing.” Asked about favoring players with religious views similar to his, Hutcheon said, “That’s pretty ridiculous.” Mueh said an internal investigation cleared Hutcheon of any wrongdoing. “At a minimum, they are misinterpreting what he said,” Mueh said of Hutcheon and his accusers. “At a maximum, they’re lying.” The investigation was conducted by Don Bird, a former colleague of Mueh’s in the chemistry department and a faculty representative to the athletic department. “I trust Don Bird totally,” Mueh said. Then referring to players’ remarks to The Gazette, Mueh said, “I appreciate what you have there, but that’s biased. It’s absolute perception that doesn’t line up with my trusted agent who talked to a whole hell of a lot of people on the team.” Asked who Bird talked to and how he conducted the investigation, Mueh said, “I have no idea. I gave him carte blanche to investigate this.” Bird’s report was a four-paragraph e-mail to Mueh. In the report and in an interview, Bird said he interviewed nine players. The inquiry, he said, was prompted by an anonymous letter to academy superintendent Lt. Gen. John Regni. Bird said part of the letter indicated Hutcheon was pushing religion. Bird wrote to Mueh, “I asked, ‘Did Coach Hutcheon tell the team that they needed to develop some faith in God to win ball games or imply that idea in anything they have ever heard him say?’ Each of the 9 players individually answered ‘No.’ I then asked, ‘Did Coach Hutcheon tell the team they should start a Bible study to help them develop a faith in God that hopefully would translate to wins for the team or imply that idea in anything they have ever heard him say?’ Each of the 9 players individually answered ‘No.’ ” Bird said he pulled the nine players out of practice and spoke to each in the dugout, out of earshot of anyone else. “If none heard it, that was good enough for me,” Bird said. Bird said he did not speak with players from previous teams. Asked if his investigation went beyond those interviews or questions, Bird said, “No. That was the issue addressed in the anonymous letter.” Bird said then-junior Billy Adams was one of the players he spoke to. In an earlier interview with The Gazette, Adams said Bird had not spoken to him about the matter. Other players interviewed by The Gazette said Bird never asked them about Hutcheon. Athletic department spokesman Troy Garnhart said after they received Bird’s report, Mueh and Regni together spoke with Hutcheon. “They asked him specifically about these allegations and both believed him totally when he said they didn’t happen,” Garnhart said in an e-mail. Through the academy spokesman, Johnny Whitaker, Regni declined to comment for this story. Whitaker released a statement that said in part: “We are disappointed that our hometown newspaper is choosing to run an article based on meritless, anonymous allegations. The academy’s superintendent and athletic director whole-heartedly support Coach Hutcheon and the new direction that he has taken our baseball team.” Mueh and Bird were among those who signed an advertisement in the Dec. 12, 2003, edition of the academy’s newspaper, the Academy Spirit. The advertisement read, in part: “Jesus is the reason for our season. A savior has been born. We believe Jesus Christ is the only real hope for the world. If you’d like to discuss Jesus, feel free to contact one of us.” Bird said his religious beliefs were irrelevant to this issue. “First, I would say that I’m a scientist,” Bird said. “I know how to be objective. Much of my life has been spent in positions requiring objectivity. I didn’t see it as an investigation of an evangelical Christian. I saw as this an anonymous letter, and let’s get to the bottom and see if there are any facts. If there had been, I would have reported it as such.” Bird added, “I don’t believe my religious faith in any way, shape or form had any impact on what I was asked to do or what I did.” Several players claimed that during the 2006 season, religion divided the locker room into two groups: One, a group of players referred to by their teammates as the “God Squad;” the other, everyone else. Adams, one of those identified by former teammates as being part of the “God Squad,” said the team has finally “gotten rid of the cancer.” “If there was a dividing line in the locker room, it was who’s going to shut up and play ball and accept what coach says or who’s going to run their mouth because we’re losing and bringing negativity,” Adams said. Turmoil Hit Early
The four captains were Mike Rose (.352 batting average), Bryan Zumbro (.389), Ryan Fitzgerald (.313) and Mike Chapados (2.79 earnedrun average). Told they weren’t going on the trip, they all quit, beginning a trend whereby key seniors have either quit or been cut during each of Hutcheon’s three seasons at Air Force. “When adversity hits and things don’t go well, some guys starting scrambling under rocks,” Hutcheon said. “That’s what happened with that class.” Hutcheon said he made the decision about the seniors in 2004 to give younger players experience. “They were elected captains by themselves, and that was done before I was here,” Hutcheon said. “Really, coming into that situation, none of those guys had any kind of varsity experience. They were all JV players. So we were playing a lot of young guys, starting young and giving some guys some experience.” Though Hutcheon characterized them as “JV players,” Rose had started 46 games for the varsity squad in 2003, fourth most on the team; Fitzgerald had played in 23 games, and Chapados had pitched in 13 games, third-most among relievers. One of the freshmen who replaced a senior that year was catcher Jon Polston. Polston started 109 games for the Falcons and won the MWC's sportsmanship award in 2005. After the 2006 season ended in May, Hutcheon asked Polston to leave the team. Hutcheon “told Jon he was uncoachable,” said one player on the 2006 team. “He might be the best catcher in the conference.” Polston confirmed he was cut from the team and that Hutcheon told him he was uncoachable but declined to discuss other details of his relationship with the coach. When first questioned about Polston, Hutcheon said he was let go for academic reasons. But when asked to respond to the comment about Polston being uncoachable, Hutcheon said, “He was a .190 career hitter. He was uncoachable in a lot of ways, and a lot of the situation with Jon was that we tried to spend a lot of time with Jon, and he wasn’t buying into what we were trying to accomplish. He was our best catcher and still is. But what we’re trying to develop here, you’ve got to remember, is tomorrow’s leaders for today’s Air Force. We didn’t feel like he was a guy who was part of our system as far as what our goals were.” Hutcheon was incorrect regarding Polston’s career batting average. Polston hit .243 in his three seasons. Others who were in Hutcheon’s good graces later ran afoul of him. Travis Fugler, a junior at the time, was named team captain when the four seniors quit in 2004. Several players from the 2004 team said they believe Fugler was named captain because he is a devout Christian. “When Travis got the captain’s slot, everybody was blown away,” said one former player who described himself as a devout Christian. “When coach gave him the captain’s slot without taking a vote, which was a tradition before, everybody suspected it was because he had ideological ties to him.” By the midpoint of the 2005 season, however, Fugler clashed with Hutcheon and quit the team. He declined comment on his relationship with Hutcheon. Asked why Hutcheon’s appointed captains have eventually quit, one former player said: “He’s a really controlling guy. He has to be in control, and if he feels like someone is in his territory he’ll get rid of them.” Another said: “He can’t take criticism. If a player tries to tell him anything, he’ll get upset. I was just trying to tell him what I was seeing on the field, and he took it as though I was telling him he’s a bad coach.” Hutcheon said some players were angered because he stopped helping them skip some of the military obligations of cadets. Because of travel, games and practice, some accommodations are made for varsity athletes. “We tried to make sure that guys were first in line, that they were leaders of their squadron, that they’re doing a lot of things that way,” Hutcheon said. Pratt, for example, was the assistant director of operations for his squadron. Though Hutcheon wanted his players to be leaders in their squadrons, he also wanted them to remember who was boss on the baseball field. “We believe in the decisions we made, and we had to stick by them,” Hutcheon said when asked about handling criticism or suggestions from players. “The academy tries to develop guys in their squadron, and by the time they become seniors, they’ve been given a lot of leeway in the squadron, and they are in charge of a lot of things on the hill. It’s hard to change that when they get to the field and have to understand that the authority is with the coaching staff. Maybe they felt they had more authority than we wanted to give them.” Asked if the numerous conflicts between players and Hutcheon raised suspicions about his coach, Mueh blamed it on the culture of the sport and overbearing parents. “You can make the argument he’s being too tough, that he’s not as understanding as he should be, but let me tell you this, he has my full support,” Mueh said. Attempt To Leave Mountain West
Nine players left the Air Force team before or during the 2006 season. Three of them were sophomores, including Matt Ghigna, who was the team’s leading hitter as late as mid-April. Six were seniors. As a point of comparison, 11 of 13 upperclassmen at Navy finished the season with new coach Paul Kostacopoulos. The two players who did not were a senior, who had played only nine innings as a junior in 2005, and a junior who had only one plate appearance as a sophomore in 2005. Kostacopoulos came from the University of Maine, where he led the Bears to the NCAA tournament in 2005. The Navy team he inherited was 12-33-1 in 2005. The 2006 team finished 32-21-1. On Feb. 25, Navy beat Air Force 11-6 in the Service Academy Classic in Millington, Tenn. The 2007 Air Force baseball schedule has not been released. But in something of a surrender, Mueh asked the Mountain West Conference as late as June if Air Force could drop out of the conference in baseball. Conference officials refused. But as a concession, the Mountain West will allow Air Force to play eight more non-Division I opponents than other conference teams. Divi sion I is the highest level of college athletics, so Division II or III competition should be easi er for the Falcons. Hutcheon said he remains confident. He said the depar tures were a byproduct of play ers deciding “what side of the fence” they wanted to be on. “You can’t compromise as a leader,” Hutcheon said. “You can’t compromise what you’re doing with your program. This program has had problems for a long time, before we got here In order to clean that up, that stuff has to come to the top, it has to rear its ugly head. To me, it’s like, ‘OK, that’s one more problem that’s gone.’ ” AFA report on baseball investigationThe Gazette, October 14, 2006 The Air Force Academy said it investigated allegations against baseball coach Mike Hutcheon. The investigation was prompted by an anonymous letter to Superintendent Lt. Gen. John Regni and focused on allegations of Hutcheon pushing his religious views on his players. Donald Bird, a chemistry professor and faculty representative to the athletic department, did the investigation. The academy said his entire report was included in a four-paragraph email to athletic director Hans Mueh, with a copy to Johnny Whitaker, the academy's director of communications. The report follows: From: Bird, Donald M PhD USAFA/DFC Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 4:46 PM To: Mueh, Hans J Dr USAFA/AH Cc: johnny.whittaker@usafa.af.mil Subject: Allegations regarding baseball's Coach Hutcheon Hans-- I just completed talking to some of the players and coaches from the baseball team. I talked to one of the firstclass captains, the secondclass captain, one other firstclassmen, one other secondclassmen, a thirdclassmen, and four fourthclassmen. I asked, "Did Coach Hutcheon tell the team that they needed to develop some faith in God to win ball games or imply that idea in anything they have ever heard him say?" Each of the 9 players individually answered "No." I then asked, "Did Coach Hutcheon tell the team they should start a Bible study to help them develop a faith in God that hopefully would translate to wins for the team or imply that idea in anything they have ever heard him say?" Each of the 9 players individually answered "No." I then separately asked the exact same questions of two of the assistant coaches, Ryan Thompson and volunteer assistant Scott Marchand. Both individually answered "No" to both questions. An additional note: one of the first classmen I talked to, C1C Billy Adams, told me that he received an e-mail from a former cadet he knew asking if Coach Hutcheon had told the team they needed to develp a faith in God to win ball games and that they should form a Bible study to develop that faith. So, it appears there is a good deal of fishing at multiple levels across the team. Let me know if I can be of further assistance. V/R Don //Signed// Donald M. Bird, Ph.D. Professor and Deputy Head Department of Chemistry
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