COLUMN: Hiding behind a stack of resumes

From Josh Callahan's, "A View from the Porch" The game wasn't played in the Palestra. It wasn't even played this season. The ugly game was played in Weightman Hall by the Athletic Department. The result? The administration struck out -- one strike each for cowardice, lack of vision and lack of concern for the student-athlete. Entering last season, it was no secret that Soriero was in the last year of a contract that most expected would not be renewed. Her teams had struggled during her first eight years at Penn, compiling a 72-136 record and never finishing higher than fourth in the league. With two outstanding seniors and a bumper crop of new talent, however, the Quakers posted a 13-13 record last year, were competitive in the Ivy League and looked to have a promising future. The team's unexpected success left the Athletic Department with a difficult decision to make. Should Soriero be signed to another long-term deal -- a typical deal for new coaches at Penn is three seasons -- on the hope that she was putting the program on a course for success, or was one hopeful season too little too late for a coach that had struggled throughout the decade? Given two difficult but valid choices, the Athletic Department bailed out and chose a third option. It offered Soriero a one-year deal and hoped the team either won the Ivy title or fell to last place -- anything that would make a decision on Soriero's future easy to defend. The department got its wish -- a 4-10 start and unending pressure to win that caused Soriero to be first to the punch and resign before she could be let go. Soriero should be credited for falling on her sword and making a tough decision. She has lost a job but she will leave with the knowledge that during a tough time she looked out for her team and made the best of a bad situation. The members of the administration, meanwhile, should be hiding behind their desks after leaving the players dangling in pressurized limbo for more than a year. Disregarding the strain a one-year deal put on Soriero personally -- she is a paid employee after all -- the decision was, more importantly, wildly unfair to the players. The team has been playing for the past year and a half knowing every turnover and missed shot built a path towards the unemployment line for its coach. College athletics isn't as fun when you are being relied on to save a coach from the firing line. One year should have been enough for these women to suffer. Whether it was Soriero or someone else, the sophomore class should have walked in the door certain that the person holding the whistle would still be there when graduation rolled around. Instead, the administration flinched. Now it has far more problems than it started with. A department that has already gone through its fair share of coaching searches finds itself with two more, for arguably the two biggest women's sports in the country. The stability on the women's side of the coaching ranks is now very tenuous.The four biggest sports for women -- basketball, soccer, volleyball and softball -- all feature coaches in 1999 with less than two seasons' experience. There's nothing wrong with a youth movement -- until it becomes a revolving door. If that happens, then administrators can get out from behind their desks and start hiding behind stacks of resumes.