Report: "Shameful Situation" - UCLA Professors Call Out Block/Guerrero over Alford Hiring

We've seen a few mentions of this article in our comment threads and a fanshot link, but the OC Register article detailing Dan Guerrero and Gene Block's incompetence, arrogance, and tone-deaf handling of the hiring process of Steve "TRA" Alford and the resulting aftermath has come out from behind its firewall. So let's dig into the meat of this thing.

Those of you who read BN more than casually are likely quite familiar with the disturbing comments Alford made in defense of Pierre Pierce back in Iowa, and the allegations of victim strong arming that followed. Now it would be one thing if TRA had taken the time from that public embarrassment and his subsequent run out of town in Iowa and did some introspection and figured out what it was that he did wrong. Unfortunately at his introductory press conference, TRA was unapologetic, unremorseful, and insistent that he was simply following orders, aka the Nuremberg Defense. Well it didn't work out all that great back then and it didn't work out for Alford either when the involved parties back in Iowa were more than happy to punch holes in his flimsy story.

And that's where this story takes a sad, Chianti fueled turn (emphasis mine):

The emails and documents obtained by the Register reveal how Alford’s April 11 apology for his handling of the Pierce incident came against a backdrop of mounting pressure on Block from a number of faculty and calls for Alford and Guerrero’s futures to be taken up by the school’s academic senate. The documents also show an administration consumed by the controversy. And while several top administrators complained that the scandal was being driven by what one UCLA official referred to as the "irrational fan base," the emails reveal the sharpest criticism of Alford and Guerrero often came from UCLA professors and department heads, officials in the University of California system’s Office of the President and even some of the former Bruins players who were closest to Wooden.

I don't think there's any question as to who the "irrational fan base" here is. I, for one, am proud to be a part of it, and I know I'm not alone. Because only in the eyes of Chianti Dan Guerrero's AD and Gene Block's Murphy Hall is it "irrational" to think that maybe hiring an (alleged)rape apologist to head Coach John R. Wooden's program isn't such a great idea. For the rest of the "irrational fan base", who were told that we were making too big a deal out of this, and that we should let bygones be bygones, aka the USC Plantation Mentality Boys-Will-Be-Boys defense, you know now that you were not alone. That the most respected members of the campus community shared your concerns. That ultimately you were right to have those concerns.

It's also important to note that the apology that eventually came out of TRA that many of us believed to be insincere due to the timing, was indeed not a matter of true remorse, but remorse over getting caught.

And Andy Hill. Remember him? I know many of the old timers here do and many of the rest of us know of him through the stories of his relationship with Coach. Well he didn't hold back in saying exactly what we "irrational" fans were saying at the time:

"BTW, if Dan asked Steve about the Pierre Pierce situation in his interview and got the answer he gave Tuesday then why did we hire him?" Andy Hill, a member of three national title teams under Wooden, wrote in an April 4 email to Rhea Turteltaub, UCLA vice chancellor for external affairs. "If Dan didn’t ask him why is Dan still our Athletic Director?"

Good questions indeed, Mr. Hill. And questions that, might I remind everyone, we still do not have real answers to to this day. As it became clear that someone dropped the ball either in Morgan Center or Murphy Hall or both, and that something was amiss, the PR conflagration only continued to grow: