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Tammy Light is a Searsport native who says she has a special place in her heart for the University of Maine. She grew up a Black Bear fan, it is her alma mater and, as the school’s compliance director, she helped guide the school through a difficult time during the NCAA investigation.
On the job, she endured the intense scrutinization of the NCAA investigation. In her personal life, she overcame surgery to repair a disorder in her esophagus. She was perfectly content to stay at Maine for a long, long time.
But as time went on, she discovered that she simply couldn’t work for Athletic Director Sue Tyler and associate ADs Dino Mattessich and Craig Turnbull.
So when an attractive offer from Providence College came her way, she felt she had no alternative but to accept it.
Light is just one of 20 former members of the university’s athletic department who have left within the last 18 months.
“On the whole, the university was very supportive of me. I had great relationships with the deans of the colleges and the rest of the administration. It was just the athletic administration that I had a problem with and, unfortunately, that’s who I had to work with,” Light said.
Tyler said turnover in an athletic department isn’t unusual and pointed out that there is just one high-level administrator left at the University of Maryland, where she had been prior to taking the Maine job in September of 1995.
“Turnover is something that happens in athletic departments more than at universities in general and there is more turnover at universities than there is in the outside world,” Tyler said.
“There are a couple of factors about a place like the University of Maine,” Tyler said. “First, it is a training ground and it is thought of as one. Most of the people who have left here have done so for better paying positions.”
They will be better off financially.
“We’re a shopping ground. Anybody who is good here is going to get an offer elsewhere. We’re a state university, we have a good reputation and solid athletic programs and we don’t pay very well. So people are going to bid on some of our employees,” added Tyler. “Look at [former men’s basketball coach] Rudy Keeling. He got a fantastic opportunity [at Northeastern].”
She said Maine’s athletic department has been hiring good, young, eager professionals right out of college and they have become attractive hires for other schools.
after gaining experience at Maine.
“And we easily lose in the bidding wars,” said Tyler.
The University of Maine’s unstable financial climate has spurred employees to look elsewhere, said Tyler.
“They figure they’d better look somewhere else because our budget is going to get cut,” said Tyler.
Colin Howlett, who recently resigned his position as athletic-academic councillor to take a similar post at Virginia Tech, agreed with Tyler.
“The main reason I left is because it is a tremendous opportunity for me. The University of Maine is hurting financially. This gives me an opportunity to make more money and further my career,” said Howlett who, along with wife Lisa and infant daughter Natalie, likes the idea of being closer to their two families in Pennsylvania and Mississippi.
Former Maine assistant baseball coach Mike Coutts, who failed in his attempt to land the head baseball job at Maine last year, said part of the exodus has nothing to do with the current administration.
“Lynn and I thought the world of [former AD] Mike Ploszek and [associate AD] Mike Palisi. When they left, a lot of us were hurt after that whole situation and we got thinking about things at the university,” said Coutts who left with his wife Lynn to start their own business.
Staffers’ opinions not valued
Everybody has their own reasons for leaving but several indicated that the way they were treated by Tyler, Mattessich and Turnbull played a role in their departures.
“It was never my intention to leave Maine,” insisted Light, who left to become the associate athletic director and senior women’s administrator at Providence College. “I actually turned the Providence job down initially.
“But I re-evaluated my position at Maine, how things were going there and I felt like it wasn’t a good fit with the current athletic administration,” said Light. “I had to move on.”
Light said the problem stems from the athletic administration’s treatment of staff members and their input.
“They don’t value our opinions,” said Light. “They have a hard time understanding the Maine culture and Maine people. We didn’t feel like we were valued or understood. And they felt if you didn’t agree with them, you were against them. I don’t think they valued my opinion because they believed what they were doing was right. There’s nothing wrong with that. I just didn’t want to work where my opinion didn’t count.”
Tyler was caught off guard by Light’s allegations.
“I really valued all of their opinions,” said Tyler. “Tammy did all of our NCAA research and I valued her opinions completely. I used her word exclusively on a lot of issues. She was the guru of compliance. I even asked her to draw up her own job description and we could have worked on it together. This really surprises me.”
Communication problems bothered Lynn Coutts, who worked in marketing and promotion before resigning.
“There was absolutely no communication,” she said. “They said they wanted to hear your opinions but I don’t think they really did.”
She said the communication was just window dressing because Tyler, Mattessich and Turnbull had already decided on a course of action.
“Everything was done after the fact,” said Coutts.
Tina Kiriakou, the former Maine athletic ticket manager, gave up on making suggestions.
“You stop making suggestions after being shot down so many times,” said Kiriakou, who recently left to return to the Minnesota Twins’ ticket office. “The morale is low there. I hope when the new president comes on board, he takes a good look at the athletic department and makes changes.”
Tyler disagreed.
“Tina devised her job description and put together a ticket brochure. She did a great job with it,” said Tyler. “I valued her opinion highly. She was on two of our committees.”
Kiriakou said her beefs were with Mattessich. She said he broke a promise when she wasn’t allowed to accompany the women’s basketball team to the NCAA Tournament in Louisiana last spring.
“That was one of the reasons I came to Maine. I thought I’d get the opportunity to travel,” said Kiriakou.
Mattessich is vacationing and couldn’t be reached for comment but Tyler said, “Nothing was promised to her. She would have gone if we needed her. If the hockey team had gone to the Hockey East playoffs, I would have sent her with them to do the tickets.”
The hockey team was banned from postseason play due to NCAA-imposed sanctions.
Tyler said she and Scott Lowenberg from the promotional and marketing department were the only two to go to Louisiana and several other employees were left behind.
“Scott and I did the tickets because we sent a skeleton crew in order to cut way back on travel expenses,” said Tyler. “Besides, there were no ticket managers from the other schools there.”
Kiriakou also said she was told by Mattessich she wouldn’t have to work every home game and she wound up working all but one and that was because she was attending a computer seminar in California.
Some liked UM experience
Howlett and sports information staffers Matt Bourque, the new assistant commissioner of America East, and John Butman said their experiences at Maine were positive.
“I wasn’t looking to leave. I loved my time here. The state has a lot to offer and the university has been wonderful to me. There are a lot of good people still at the university and as much as some may not be happy with the way things are, it’s still a pretty good situation in a lot of ways,” said Howlett.
“I don’t know if, 40 years down the road, I could ever be as close to the people I work with as I was with Joe [Roberts] and John,” said Bourque, who has been at Maine for eight years after studying at the school for four. “I loved it there and want to go back there. But I needed to do something different to refresh me.”
This was a perfect opportunity.”
Butman, who was at Maine for nearly two years, said “I had a great experience there. But my wife [Meaghan] moved back to the area near where both our families are from [in Massachusetts] and she got a teaching position she couldn’t refuse.”
However, Howlett, Bourque and Butman didn’t have to deal with Tyler, Mattessich and Turnbull as often as Light and Kirakou.
An optimistic future?
Light said she is “genuinely concerned” about the athletic leadership at the university, especially the compliance department.
But Tyler is optimistic.
She said new compliance director Tracey Flynn is exceptional and they have added “even more checks and balances” in the department.
She likes the fact there has been a stabilizing of turnover in the coaching ranks since John Winkin was replaced by Paul Kostacopoulos and John Giannini has replaced Keeling.
“And one of the wonderful things about Maine is we still continue to draw a great applicant pool when we have a job opening,” said Tyler. “We had over 80 applicants for the SID jobs.”
That could be very important to the well-being of the university if the current trend continues.
Exodus from UMaine
A List of University of Maine athletic department departures within the last 18 months:
MATT BOURQUE Sports Information Director JOHN BUTMAN Assistant Sports Information Director LYNN COUTTS Promotion and Marketing MIKE COUTTS Assistant Baseball Coach GREG CRONIN Interim Head Hockey Coach MARK DECKER Athletic Ticket Manager MARIAN DRESSLER Academic Support CINDY DUQUE Athletic Business Office CHRIS DUNPHY Men’s Basketball Office Secretary JIMMY DUNPHY Facilities Management and Maintenance COLIN HOWLETT Academic Support WES JORDAN Head Trainer RUDY KEELING Head Basketball Coach TINA KIRIAKOU Athletic Ticket Manager CHRIS LANDER Head Golf Coach MIKE LAPLANTE Assistant Basketball Coach TAMMY LIGHT Compliance Director DAWN STROUT Assistant Strength/Conditioning Coach DENICE TUCKER Compliance Department JOHN WINKIN Head Baseball Coach
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