2nd Source Confirms Svoboda Fired by Text Message
by Ajax on Aug 15, 2007 11:41 AM PDT
in Football
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PrintThanks to DD for staying on top of this disturbing news--A
cross-posted from DumpDorrell.com
Right. We were ready to drop this story once we got confirmation from Marc Dellins, UCLA football SID, and from Jim Svoboda himself that he was NOT fired by text message. But 2 things have happened since we broke this story.
- We personally spoke to a second, well-placed source (an NCAA football coach that knows Svoboda well), that confirmed that Svoboda was fired by text message.
- Jim Svoboda himself did not deny that his mother-in-law sent us that email, although in 2 emails he had the opportunity when asked. As Woodward and Berstein would say, "He did not deny."
Now, one crazy email from a supposed mother-in-law against the denials of UCLA and Svoboda himself put this issue to bed. But an NCAA coach confirming it makes it more likely that it went down this way. We know that there will be nothing made of this in the press. But you can know that we are getting to the bottom of this. If this is how he is conducting himself representing UCLA and UCLA football it is disgraceful. Moreover, if he is lying about it, given the total lack of transparency regarding the Scott hiring, we are now, for the first time ever, beginning to question his integrity. The one thing we liked about him is now seriously in doubt. Shameful.
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Didn't Dorrell do something similiar
God, Dorrell has the nuance and soft touch of a frreaking sledge hammer.
Updated post
Big props to Dump Dorrell for their tenacious follow-up.
It will be interesting
Is there any way
I did a search
In one record, a James Svoboda is shown living at a Castaic, CA address recently. An additional listed household member is one Susan Svoboda.
In another record, referencing the same Castaic address, a Susan Svoboda is listed with the aka of Susan Merworth.
The same record, shows Susan Svoboda, aka Susan Merworth, as having a specific previous address in Lone Oak, TX.
In still another record, for Elizabeth Merworth, the same Lone Oak, TX address is listed as a current address.
Note, the DOB's listed on the records referred to above are consistent with one would expect for the Svoboda's and Mrs. Merworth. Also, recall that the comment on DD made reference to people having "more guts than that in Texas."
Sounds to me like Elizabeth Merworth is probably Jim Svoboda's mother-in-law. That doesn't mean that the person who posted on DD was actually Mrs. Merworth though.
by EricBruin on Aug 15, 2007 3:15 PM PDT up reply actions
got links?
Afraid I don't
by EricBruin on Aug 15, 2007 3:35 PM PDT up reply actions
Ahh - the old
That's why student Westlaw access is great
I know about two things
Correct re. Lexis
My 1L Legal Research & Writing class gave a limited amount of instruction on hard copy research, but under the context of "this might be useful if the power goes out and you still have to research...".
Witkin
Now it's the Rutter Group, and Weil & Brown for a lot of what I do. A friend of mine was a research attorney for Judge Weil when his book came out. She was sworn sort of to secrecy, when he said that he really didn't think he was an expert on Civil Pro before trial, but that once hie book was published he had to agree that he was.
My gripe with electronic research is that it's really hard (at least for me) to look at a table of contents.
The Egalitarian Impact of Lexis and Westlaw
About two years into my tenure as a law school prof, electronic research entered the world of the law.
One thing that many of you young people probably don't know:
Electronic research had a great bit to do with leveling the large law firm salary structures.
Before electronic research, the people at the top took a disproportionate share of the money.
Enter Westlaw and Lexis.
The young associates could work faster and for less money. The partners couldn't.
As the practice quickly moved to the computer world, the older partners became dinosaurs.
As soon as the young guys realized that they held the power to revolutionize the practice, they played that card and demanded a better split of the dough.
Some firms broke up with the young guys taking clients. The smart firms changed the salary structure.
You young guys probably don't know any senior partners who are computer phobic or can participate in the electronic practice; most of them are older than me and out of the business.
Fox, you may be a bit too young, too.
But, it was quite a time.
Fortunately, I was into computers from the first time I saw one. I was running the Madera, CA office of CRLA -- a federally funded legal services program that was defunded by Gov. Reagan, only to be refunded by Pres. Nixon (under strong pressure from the ABA). Anyway, when I had a secreterial opening, I took an IBM mag card system instead of a person. It was great for creating form pleadings. It completely filled a 10x10 room.
It probably had less computer power than my current Treo 650 phone, but it was a magnificent thing and I felt like I was on the cutting edge of the pracitce.
Nothing to do with sports -- but reading about Westlaw and Lexis brought this on.
Early on
But using that little baby saved about an hour, and when that hour was between midnight and 1:00 a.m., I was glad to get it saved.
Can They All be Right?
The way you put the question is better
Dorrell DID meet with Svoboda
Is this right?
How we know
I dont want to say
I took employment law last semester
Let me makes something clear
So, we are not instigating or in any way pushing this story to demean Dorrell in any way. It keeps coming to us. Which says something right there.
I'm sure Mr. Dorrell will set the record straight
Just like the MSM reporters always do, and just as Mr. Dorrell always responds.
The Correct Answer
Also, while it does not apply to this situation, the best advice I was ever given for dealing with the media is to never answer a question that wasn't asked.
Speaking as an attorney...
"We personally spoke to a second, well-placed source (an NCAA football coach that knows Svoboda well), that confirmed that Svoboda was fired by text message."
Unless the second, well-placed "source" was one of the people who was part of the decision-making process that led to Svoboda being fired, I sincerely doubt that he is in a position to confirm that he was, in fact, "fired by text message."
Even if this source heard this from Svoboda himself, the source may only be in a position to confirm that Svoboda commited the act of telling the source that he was fired. In other words, that may be the only thing that the "source" can confirm -- his conversation with Svoboda. No more, no less.
Why? Because he seemingly was NOT one of the people that did the firing.
Without more information, this kind of statement from the "source" looks like hearsay only and may NOT be reliable evidence.
If KD himself admitted to doing this, then there arguably would be a stronger position to take, because it would presumably be a statement against KD's own interest (another form of hearsay exception udner the law).
But just based on this one paragraph, I am not sure that it confirms anything about how Svoboda was fired or not.
MIM
Unless
Objection overruled
And counsel, if you don't like my ruling, the Court of Appeal is just down the road a piece.
Request to be heard, Judge...
We do not know whether he saw a text message, or heard this from Mr. Svoboda, or participated in the decision-making process, or simply speculated as to the actions that may have taken place.
MIM
MIM - all true
However, there is a reporter that is looking into this because of its obvious significance in terms of Dorrell's handling of all the assistant coaches in his program over the years (as 66 has pointed out) - ie the unusually high turnover. Is there something bigger going on that due to the silence of the coaching fraternity we are unaware of? It is significant that an NCAA coach is breaking that silence. Maybe this is the pot boiling over. At the very least, it has been an exceedingly odd set of events.
Question
If a reporter asks our source, and then says ask another solid source, and then talks to the mother in law .. that is 3 sources who cold possibly say that Svoboda told them immediately after being fired that he found out via text. Then there is something there. The reporter would ask Svoboda about it, he would deny he was fired that way, then the reporter would reveal that 3 separate sources said Svoboda said differently. Who are you lying to Jim .. your close friends and family or me?
I dont know, its not pretty, and part of me hates going down this path. But you know what we didnt make this path, Dorrell did. And this is our football team. And you dont treat people this way. And maybe treating people this way is why we have a revolving door of coaches. And having a revolving door of coaches is helping to give us a bad season year in year out. And this coach wants us to believe that he runs a clean program and that he is ready to make a move ... so that we continue to give him nearly $1M a year of public money.
So, bottom line, now that a reporter is on it, we will see where it goes. And if people keep reeling us in with new info we will continue to pursue it.
Hearsay
Hearsay is an out of court statement offered to prove the truth of the statement. But there are about a billion exceptions. So who's the hearsay declarant - who made the statement as to which the truth is in question? Swoboda. (Or is it Svoboda? Can't remember.) A lot of time it depends on the kind of case (probate cases, murder cases). But in the kind of stuff I worked on, if it came from a party and was an admission of something, it was an exception to the hearsay rule.
The scenario of three people testifying that Swoboda said XYZ, then Swoboda testifying that he didn't say anything. That's just a question of who the jury believes, but I think the statement would get to the jury (assuming that there is a case in which that would be an issue, which we ain't got.)
Making a move
This is a step in the right direction. He can use emotocons to express his mood to players and coachs.
Sample Dorrell texts:
Svoboda :( UR fired
- Ben Run da ball :)
- Run again
- run again
- :( punt
by joeb @ Bruins Nation on Aug 15, 2007 2:13 PM PDT reply actions
Why is it necessary
by ChampsMadeHere on Aug 15, 2007 2:13 PM PDT reply actions
Now I Understand
Don't read it if you don't like it.
(And just for clarification, I am not in any way making an attempt to speak for Nestor)
I don't, I skip them
BN is BN, and DD is DD--they don't have to be mutually exclusive, but not EVERYTHING needs to be re-posted here.
We have a new season to look forward to and we're subjected to meritless "stories" from a Dorrell-obsessed popinjay?
BTW, Bruin"Fan", didn't you get clowned by Fox 71 a couple months ago for being a Trojan sympathizer? Heed some of your OWN advice, and "don't read" my comments...how's that sound? You're just an Anteater in Bruin clothing, anyway.
by ChampsMadeHere on Aug 15, 2007 2:49 PM PDT up reply actions
Can you read
Prove that we are cross posting by the day. You keep exaggerating ... now Prove it. I think we might have had 4 cross posts all Summer, maybe 5 maybe even 3. And by cross posts I am not saying posts that link to our content, I mean a full cross posting by me.
If you haven't noticed there are 3/4/5 posts a day. So its a little bit of an exaggeration to say that our cross posts are "increasingly harder to avoid."
The petition had no value to DG?? You sure about that?? What evidence do you give? You have no idea what we know and who communicates with us but you are darn sure that DG did not pay attention. Ok. You're the champ. I guess you KNOW.
Meanwhile, our message is getting out in the media. Whether its BN, DD, or pure circumstance I could care less .. if Dorrell falters the stage is set for going in a new direction. I remember the Lavin years so well ... it took a lot longer to grease the wheels ... at least I hope so. I think by every measure we have seen this Summer, the media AND DG is getting the message, even if you think they arent.
And what if this Svoboda thing turns out to be true. Should we have listened to you and shut up?? Seriously, what do you think?
Thank You For Reminding Me
To be completely honest, I didn't understand how blogs worked, how much hard work needs to be put into them, or what Nestor meant by people having a sense of entitlement. Now I do and I am glad I do. I can only hope to add more substantive posts to BN in the future.
On to another point that you make, yes, I was clowned by Fox71. I think that subject pertains to the information held in the former paragraph. I also believe it will not be the last time I am clowned/owned/schooled by him.
Thank you for your very Trojanesque post.
Zot Zot!!!
I am happy to say that
And, sadly, I'm a little too old to know what "clowned" means in this context. Is that when you create a new sheep from some sells from the old sheep?
"Sells" being what we
It Simply Means
BruinFan1
Rip 'em Eaters!
by ChampsMadeHere on Aug 15, 2007 3:57 PM PDT up reply actions
A suggestion
We cross-post them because they are germane to a large portion of our blog's message.
Wow, Champs
I don't think anyone has taken the position that the hearsay statements of anyone are true. In fact, just the opposite. All we have here is speculation about whether the statements are correct or incorrect, with some people attempting to find out. It seems to me that it would be better to find out what the truth is than to get overly aggressive about it.
I think, just my opinion of course, that this "'story'/alleged conversation" is indeed worthy of a BN front page and further, is worthy of being investigated to see if it can be corroborated. Again, just my opinion, but I think the character and integrity of Mr. Dorrell and everyone connected with the football program are issues worthy of discussing.
If you have been reading things here for any length of time, one of the points that everyone agreed on was Mr. Dorrell's integrity and the "cleanliness" of his program. There was much debate as to his merit as a football coach and as a public speaker, but no one doubted his honesty and integrity. In the past two or three weeks, however, this perception has changed.
It started with the Coach Scott affair, and the conflicting stories of who knew what and when. Then the accusation of firing by test message from a person who would be reasonably likely to have better information than most of the rest of us (assuming the message was not a complete phony.) And more than one person followed up on this story because it was newsworthy.
It would matter to me if Mr. Dorrell fired Coach Swoboda other than at a face to face meeting. It seems to me - again just my opinion - that it wouldn't matter to you. And if that's the case, why on earth do you bother reading either BN or DD? Go to one of the sites where nothing negative is ever said about Mr. Dorrell.
Now to parse your post:
"Unsubstantiated hearsay" - first, is this better or worse than "substantiated hearsay?" But laying aside what in my opinion is an unusual way to use a legal term, the fact of the matter is that effort has been made to find out if what has been alleged is indeed true.
"Rumormongering" - I'm not sure of the definition of this word, but it seems to carry the connotation of the spreading of rumors. If that is so, then it would appear that a lot of what we read in the papers is "rumormongering." In any event, I don't think DD or anyone else is spreading rumors, but rather is trying to find out of the allegations are true. The process is basically the same as what we saw in "All the President's Men." (Although Nixon may not have had as many absolutely blind supporters as Mr. Dorrell, but I digress.)
"Petty attempts" - Again, a nice cliche, but what does it mean? If it were a "grand attempt" or a "large attempt" would it be better or worse?
But to get to the point - "petty attempts at character assassination." Your response makes it clear that you would greatly prefer that nobody find out the truth of the situation. Assuming that the truth is that Mr. Dorrell acted in a 100% completely professional way, it would seem to me that you would want this information to be made known, and the sooner the better. In fact, it sounds to me like you assume just the opposite, that an investigation will disclose that in fact Mr. Dorrell fired Coach Swoboda by text message, and for this reason you have chosen to make your rather hysterical post.
Of course, all of this is just my opinion, just like the content of your post is just your opinion.
Champ
That is an exaggeration to say the least. We have 100s of posts on DD, and only a few cross posts here during the Summer ... I would say even the year. BN has 100s of posts as well, and even more diaires. Also, I posted the last 2 posts as diaries, and BN decided to make them front page material. That is their prerogative, as is having our posts in their diaries.
This is not attempt at character assassination. This is information given to us UNPROMPTED from 2 people close to Svoboda. Is it admissable in court? No. Is it relevant and potentially significant? Yes. We are not chasing this story, it keeps coming to us.
And for your information, reporters are now inquiring. This may go away, it may not. And if it doesnt, if it gets widely reported, Im sure you are going to come back here and apologize. Either way, if this ends here or not, we didnt start or pursue this, AND, this is newsworthy in and of itself.
Give me a break
Ajax
Of course I want to know the truth about the situation, but let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Let's try to reserve judgment until all the facts come out (possibly never).
Essentially what we have is a (race card pulling) email from someone who CLAIMS to be Svoboda's mother-in-law, and a possible convo with a "well-placed source"...all coming from someone with a long-established agenda, in DD. To quote Max Foley, "that and a nickel will get you a heaping cup of JACK SQUAT!" Isn't it at all possible that this is nothing more than sour grapes from a former, crestfallen, inept OC?
Don't get me wrong: when DD puts his/her/its mind to it, he can do some great things--the conversation with the SID is only the most recent example. There was some actual substance to the info. received there.
My original point was that BN should NOT be relegated to a copy-and-paste platform for ANOTHER website.
BTW, the OC's name is Jay Norvell, not "Training Jay"; I believe it's best to leave the condescending nicknames out of it...at least until he deserves one (hopefully NO time soon).
by ChampsMadeHere on Aug 15, 2007 3:32 PM PDT reply actions
Um...
Look, this offseason just needs to END, and we need to see what our guys can do on the field!
by ChampsMadeHere on Aug 15, 2007 3:39 PM PDT up reply actions
I guess we just wait and see.
(And as an aside, I love the phrase about waiting for the facts. Were you indeed quoting General Buck Turgidson, whose favorite line was "Mr. President, I'd like to reserve judgment until all the facts are in" when General Ripper launched his bomb wing. It's a much better line when delivered by George C. Scott while he's chewing gum.)
Doing Things the Right Way
I appreciate the attempts made by Core and others to get to the bottom of stories that are of importance to Bruins Nation.
Unlike other Blogs, our members are actually trying to dig out the facts behind the rumors and to add substance to the stories. They are taking the hard road. Nothing would be easier than to simply pass crap on in the form of a rant or opinion.
I think Core's work on both the Scott story and this maybe-mother-in-law started story is laudable. Menelaus hefted a shovel, too.
They are being FAIR to KD. They are investigating rather than simply responding. If fact, if you read the sequence of the thread, you will see that for a while KD was exonerated by a follow up call to Svoboda.
And, when conflicting information came in, it was duly reported.
Is the story over? No. Could it end quickly? Yes. KD can clear the air. And, while he's at it, he can clear the air about Eric Scott, too.
Is this issue a thread or a blanket? A big deal or a little deal?
In my book, this story, and Scott's are big deals -- for two reasons.
First, as has been mentioned, ALL of us thought KD's integrity was beyond question. These recent stories have given us reason to question that assumption. That hurts. I like KD the person. I just don't think he's the right person to be coaching this team at this time.
Second, why is the Svoboda story important? Because, if anyone has missed it -- we have had a hard time hiring and retaining coaches. Wonder why we now have a receivers coach fresh from a high school? Question whether Norvell was the best OC we could get?
If the Svoboda story is true, it just might explain why good coaches don't want to hang their hats in our locker room. If the word is out in the small world of coaching that there are problems here, we will have a hard time recruiting coaches.
I'm not saying the Svoboda story is true or isn't true.
I'm simply defending the importance of the story.
As to the cross posting -- I see that as a benefit, not a detriment. Sorry Core, but I don't spend much time on DD. So, I welcome all of the very positive contributions you make here.
Funny thing. The Houston Chronicle is not a great paper. But, it is imporved by the "cross listing" of stories from the New York times and the la fishwrap.
If I didn't want to read the fishwrap in my Houston paper, all I'd have to do is turn the page. It's even easier on line. Don't click on the story.
Finally, I'm tired of hearing how "negative" this place is. It's not negative, It's honest.
Interesting, how much of the MSM sees our upcoming season the same way we do. We have the talent to win 11 games. (They buy that.) One concern is that we have a coach who may cost us a game or two. (They buy that, also.) Where is the negativity?
I find it far more negative to start justifying losing 3 or more games before we've had one, live game snap. Talk about ranking on KD. Justifying a mediocre season, before we've played one game, is an insult to him and to the entire team.
It's not like any of us want to lose games. Thread after thread makes clear that we want nothing more than to have the team and KD have a great year.
Core wants that, too.
I'm glad to have him posting here. He is a valuable member of this Nation.
Agreed
There is a bright side, if true
UR SORRY ASS IS FIRED
Let's wait till all the facts are in.
by True Blue and Gold on Aug 15, 2007 4:17 PM PDT up reply actions
I think it would be funnier....
"You can haz new job?"
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