To Be Perfectly Honest, Part Three

Seven months after getting shafted as Ball State's volleyball coach, Randy Litchfield surmises that his coaching days are over. As he himself states,

"When a male who has coached women is fired under mysterious cicrumstances I can personally confirm that that male's coaching days are over...I have applied for over a dozen jobs, some not even good jobs, and I got 'ding' letters almost immediately. My feeling is my coaching career has been ruined."

The question is, how come? Why did Litchfield lose his job as BSU's longtime women's volleyball coach? Sure, they had a losing season in 2006, but that doesn't give his former employer an excuse to terminate his contract & with it his livelihood. It's not a matter of playing the gender card or race card either. Somewhere, someone is asking, there has to be a justifiable cause behind Randy's firing, right?

He and his former coaching staff witnessed the first salvo of violations which the men's basketball coaching personnel committed; perhaps this could be a factor which led to his firing but this is no excuse to send Litchfield packing while he's ahead. I mean, he & his staff did what they felt was the right thing in reporting those violations in the first place. But nope, the only thanks which he & his staff ended up getting was no thanks at all...& in a sense, his old employer ruined his reputation & integrity in the process. And it was ruined through no fault of his own; talk about someone whose unfair termination has left him with only bitterness (if not animosity) toward the university he has called home since 1980 & you can sense his pain & despair at losing pretty much his whole life's work:

"Sadly I'm finished...It's (Ball State) been my home since 1980. I played there, I starred there, I graduated there. It's essentially the only place I've ever worked. To know that's all gone now is pretty painful."

And Litchfield is looking forward to turning a new leaf somewhere else soon; Muncie, however, is not the place for him to make that fresh start, since he no longer has any love left to show Ball State. After being unjustly booted for doing what he felt was the right thing by showing up the faults of the men's basketball coaching staff, can anyone blame him for not wanting to stay? To be perfectly honest, you can't; he is now hoping to continue to satisfy his need to compete, to bring on the competition. His need to compete, from the looks of things, won't be in the field of sports; yet entrepreneurship is the next best thing to the world of athletics & I'm wishing him the best of luck here.