TIGERGATE : All-Night Counseling Session Has Turned Into a Nightmare for Women’s Track Coach, Other Officials in LSU Athletic Program

On the very day that Coach Loren Seagrave and the women’s track and field team from Louisiana State University were assembled in the rotunda of the city hall here to collect keys to the city--awarded on the occasion of the team’s having won its second indoor national title--two parallel events were unfolding.

One of them, though, was coming together too late. As some tell it now, in their legal complaints and depositions, even as Seagrave was attending the ceremony last April 12, there were individuals in the LSU athletic department who were on the phone to Baton Rouge city officials, frantically trying to stop the presentation. “Don’t give that man the damn key,” was the reported gist of it.

The ceremony was not stopped. Seagrave and his team were made honorary mayor-presidents by the Metro Council and some individuals across town at LSU were made to seethe.

The other event had unfolded, quite literally, earlier in the day, as sleepy residents of this capital city opened their editions of the Morning Advocate to see a sensational story at the top of the sports section.

It told of how Seagrave, who is married, received a call from one of his female athletes late one night in July of 1988. According to the story, she said was distraught and needed to talk to him. Seagrave picked the athlete up at her apartment and drove her to a vacant house that he occasionally rented.

His wife was out of town.

Seagrave said that he and the athlete were at the house for several hours and left about 6 a.m. He said that during the all-night counseling session, he had hugged the athlete, who has never been named, and kissed her on the cheek, but that nothing of a sexual nature occurred.

Almost a year later, the woman’s boyfriend threatened Seagrave that he would tell “the real story” of that night. Seagrave preempted that threat by telling his version of the encounter to Pat Henry, LSU’s men’s track coach. Henry took the story to Athletic Director Joe Dean.

Within a week, Seagrave, who engineered his team’s phenomenal success--LSU has won the women’s indoor and outdoor national titles for two consecutive years, an unprecedented feat, five national titles overall--was fired, after six years at the school. He has never been given a reason for his termination, which university officials say is in accordance with policy. Seagrave, though, is suing.

All in all, that April 12 was a busy day in Baton Rouge. Among other things, it was the official opening day of what people here are calling Tigergate.

In the wake of Seagrave’s firing have surfaced allegations of all manner of improper behavior--racial and sex discrimination, recruiting violations, drug use, professional indiscretion, out-of-control school administrators, outdated state laws and a conspiracy to oust a man who some folks around here consider LSU’s most successful coach ever .

To no one’s great surprise, the entire mess is scheduled to land in court, where, if all the ungodly stories are repeated, there may be some very shocked spectators.

The heat here has been all but unbearable lately. Considering Loren Seagrave’s recent experiences, that can be taken both ways. On this particular Tuesday in June, however, it is simply hot and humid in a way that is energy-sapping.

This is the day Seagrave and his wife, Kathy Freeman, must move out of Apt. 1 at the Plantation Town Apartments in southeast Baton Rouge. They must put their belongings in storage, go to track practice and finish packing for Houston, where some of the athletes Seagrave coaches will compete in the national championships. The next day they will all fly to Europe for the first half of the summer track season there.

Included in the group is Dawn Sowell, hailed by many as the world’s next great sprinter.

It is not the best day for Seagrave to sit with a reporter and give his first lengthy interview since his dismissal. But he is doing it. He is listening to the allegations again, the rumor and the innuendo, just as he has for the past month. It’s not new. It is the sort of gossip that has followed Seagrave from job to job.

Seagrave, as he goes over the events of that night in July a year ago, says he would not change a thing. He would not have hung up on the athlete or told her to talk to someone else. He would not have taken her to a restaurant or coffee shop instead of the house. He would not have refrained from comforting her, even kissing her.

“The whole thing about counseling people is allowing them to be comfortable and allowing them to be spontaneous,” Seagrave said. “If a person is feeling comfortable where they want to sit and talk, then that’s the situation you want to be in.

“See, no woman, or man for that matter, is going to break down and spill her guts in the middle of a restaurant. It’s just not effective. And it takes a while. You don’t just plop down and they say this or that. Sometimes it’s a lot of sitting around talking and feeling comfortable.”

He says he can’t understand the winks he has seen from people who are unwilling or unable to fathom that a non-sexual encounter is possible.

“It’s a soap-opera mentality,” he said. “It ain’t real life. It seems pretty narrow to me. Maybe the people who are deciding my fate, that’s their problem. Maybe they have super hang-ups.”

In any event, the prevailing opinion is that Joe Dean and Henry, the men’s track coach, did not approve of Seagrave or his relationship with his athletes. Or, for that matter, the manner in which some of the women on LSU’s track team behaved.

Henry, who does not smoke or drink and is by all accounts a devout person, is said to have been appalled by the rather freewheeling attitudes held by some college-age women.

Add to that what has been described as Seagrave’s “hands-on” approach to his team and what some see as a cavalier attitude regarding rules, and you get disapproval, at the very least.

“Behind the whole thing, in my opinion, are the basic philosophical differences,” said Alton Moran, Seagrave’s attorney. “That’s what is going on.”

Seagrave, 38, began his coaching career at Madison East High School in Madison, Wis., then was hired as an assistant to Peter Tegen at the University of Wisconsin. From Tegen emerges a portrait of a bright, ambitious coach, one whose personal style was already emerging.

“Loren was always a very concerned, very considerate and involved coach, that was apparent early,” Tegen said. “There are those of us who are very distant. Loren was always involved with the athlete beyond the training session.”

Tegen remembers Seagrave as a ready learner who picked Tegen’s brain regarding technique and coaching philosophy. He was a hard worker who was not dismayed by long hours, even by coaching standards.

Tegen said, however, that Seagrave had one trait that disturbed him--a tendency to take rules to their very limits.

“That was one of the things that made me a little nervous,” Tegen said. “Loren is willing to play out the rules to their fullest. I’m not saying that he broke any rules, really. He was just willing to play them to the fullest. That makes the person who is ultimately responsible very nervous.”

After Wisconsin, Seagrave took an assistant’s job at Tennessee, for nine months. Terry Crawford, the 1988 Olympic women’s track coach who was then the women’s head coach at Tennessee and is now at Texas, remembers Seagrave as having been close to the athletes, almost too close.

“His style is to be very personal, very hands-on with his athletes,” Crawford said. “In terms of appearances, it has the tendency to turn on red lights and send up red flags. Because of the margin for rumor, there is probably a need for exaggerated professionalism and a need for caution. That’s probably an area that Loren didn’t consider the ramifications.”

Crawford acknowledges that she, too, has heard the rumors about Seagrave, especially in regard to recruiting violations. But the only incident she offered had to do with something that happened last summer.

“Loren encouraged an athlete of mine to come up for the summer and train,” Crawford said. “He did that without consulting me or my staff. I found that to be highly unethical. You don’t try to come between what we are doing with an athlete. I called his immediate supervisor, Pat Henry, and we took care of it. I think Loren showed poor judgment, at the very least.”

Seagrave is not unaware of the talk. But he states flat out that there have not been any recruiting violations.

The Southeastern Conference would neither confirm nor deny reports from conference coaches that complaints have been filed against Seagrave.

“There are legal boundaries you can’t cross,” Seagrave said. “But to say I haven’t used all of the latitude within the boundaries of the rules would be wrong, because I have. You have to set up the situation so that it is legal.

“I can assure you that there were probably incidents with all of the people you talked to who had done the same thing, or were envious because they didn’t think of it. I pride myself in gamesmanship. Knowing the rules and being able to play within the rules and being able to take advantage of situations is all part of gamesmanship.”

Regarding allegations that his athletes have tested positive for masking drugs, which hide the presence of steroids in the system--but are not banned by the NCAA--Seagrave responded angrily.

“The first thing people do when they are getting their butt kicked is try to find a defense mechanism to find why they can’t do it,” he said. “People were making the same allegations when I was at Tennessee. But no one’s ever confronted me and asked me.”

But he has been confronted on another topic--the graduation rate of his athletes. At least one national coach is concerned. Fred Thompson, coach of the Atoms Track Club in New York City and the sprint coach for the 1988 U.S. women’s Olympic team, has this story to tell.

He said he befriended Seagrave when the coach was still an assistant at Tennessee. Thompson introduced Seagrave to coaches and athletes in the New York area.

“I felt this guy was sincere about educating women,” Thompson said.

“Then I started looking at his program. Nobody ever graduated. What the hell was going on? I was sending him all kinds of kids and no one was getting a degree. Kids were coming in for one year, transferring, ineligible.”

Thompson said that in 1976, he wrote to Benjamin Hooks of the NAACP, drawing his attention to the problems of black female athletes at LSU. Thompson said Seagrave confronted him about the letter.

“I told him, ‘You stabbed me in the back,’ ” Thompson said. “I used to help him. Now, I’ve gone the other route. I’ve warned coaches in this area not to send him kids. Everybody in this country knows how I feel about LSU. It’s a standard joke in the coaching fraternity--What school do kids not graduate from? LSU.”

Thompson is not alone in his concern. The Baton Rouge office of the NAACP threatened a boycott of black athletes at the school to protest what it considers discriminatory hiring practices at the school. G. Washington Eames, president of the Baton Rouge NAACP, said he is now looking into the athletic department, which he describes as having a notorious reputation.

In a state that has a population that is more than 30% black, LSU’s student population is 97% white.

I cannot tolerate my coaches spending all-night sessions with the opposite sex hugging and kissing. I just can’t .

--Joe Dean, LSU athletic director

Joe Dean is, of course, a central figure in the controversy. Yet he has been no less controversial for his handling of his own affairs as for the Seagrave case. Quite apart from his statements made after Seagrave’s firing, Dean has exhibited an uncanny knack for letting his shoot-from-the-lip style undo him.

Among his well-publicized gaffes was his opinion, written in the Feb. 15 edition of Basketball Times, that a forum to discuss a two-year study on college athletics financed by the NCAA Presidents Commission was a total waste of time. “Never have I heard such a bunch of garbage,” he wrote.

Among the recommendations made at the last NCAA convention in the wake of the study were to eliminate spring football and reduce practice time for football and basketball, reduce the number of games in some sports and not allow any competition during exam periods.

Wrote Dean: “A major problem with the NCAA is that too many academicians who’ve never been in the trenches are making decisions they aren’t qualified to make.”

Then, on June 14, Dean made some remarks at a luncheon of alumni and legislators. In the June 15 editions of the Morning Advocate, a group of legislators expressed indignation over those remarks.

Rep. John Travis told his House colleagues of the incident, quoting Dean as having said: “If the East Baton Rouge delegation doesn’t get off their butts to support LSU, I will see that they get beat (for reelection.)”

Dean said he couldn’t understand the problem.

“I thought I was just giving them a pep talk,” he said. “I was just trying to motivate them.”

Nevertheless, Dean sent a letter of apology to 22 legislators from the Parish of East Baton Rouge.

“I obviously stuck my foot in my mouth,” he said in the letter.

There have been other embarrassments. On May 14, Mother’s Day, Dean was involved in a hit-and-run accident in which, according to a police report, Dean struck another car from behind in an intersection then left the scene.

Dean, driving a 1989 Oldsmobile that records show was leased to the state, drove away and stopped his car at a traffic light. When the driver of the car he had hit approached him, Dean said that he was too busy to stop, according to the report.

The woman whose car had been hit then followed Dean onto the LSU campus where he parked at his office. She, along with two campus police officers, entered Dean’s office where Dean admitted to having hit the woman’s car.

He later was cited for hit and run, failure to maintain control and not having a driver’s license.

All of which has led his critics to suggest that Dean was hardly in a position to take the moral high ground when it came to firing Seagrave for exercising bad judgment.

By far the most damaging controversy surrounding Dean is the allegation of racial discrimination.

One of the claims in Seagrave’s suit is that Dean and others in the athletic department discriminated against Seagrave because they did not approve of his interracial marriage. Dean is alleged to have made derogatory statements about Seagrave and his “nigger wife.”

The suit alleges that Seagrave was not considered for LSU’s vacant men’s head coaching job because of Dean’s “discriminating values, views and beliefs.” Moran admits that this will be difficult to prove, since many people are reluctant to testify.

Dean has denied discrimination on his part.

“I think Loren is, unfortunately, trying to make it look like a racial issue is involved because he is married to a black woman,” Dean said. “But nothing could be further from the truth. I won’t even give that credibility. It’s ludicrous. We don’t get into people’s personal lives.”

Alton Moran is the director of the public defender’s office for the Parish of East Baton Rogue. His office, beyond a courtyard in a charming New Orleans-style building downtown, is the usual cluttered affair.

Moran does not take many private cases. Scores of Baton Rouge trial attorneys were eager to handle the sensational case, but Seagrave went straight to Moran, who had been the first president of the LSU Track and Field Officials Assn.

His reading of this case has led to the $2-million lawsuit against Dean, Henry and the LSU Board of Supervisors.

The money breaks down as follows:

--Damages for humiliation, pain, suffering, and emotional distress and loss of reputation, $500,000.

--Damages for loss of income, $1 million.

--Punitive damages, $500,000.

In addition, the suit seeks to have Seagrave reinstated.

Moran filed in federal court and did not request a jury trial. Because of this, unless the case is transferred to another district, it will be heard by one of two judges, either of whom may have a conflict. One judge is also employed by LSU. The other has a son who works at the law firm that is defending LSU.

All attorneys involved estimate that even if the case is whisked through the system, it will be more than a year before it sees the inside of a courtroom. If it ever does.

Moran says he took the case because it contained some interesting legal elements.

One of his foremost questions concerns the procedure by which Seagrave was fired. Louisiana is an “employment at will” state, which means, in part, that an employer need not give a reason for firing an employee. This is part of the school’s case, that Dean didn’t have to give a reason for firing Seagrave.

“We have certain rights as the employer and we have exercised them,” said Shelby McKenzie, who represents LSU.

Moran will argue that Page 5 of the LSU Employee Handbook requires that dismissals may only be for cause and must be in writing.

He will put forth that LSU’s grievance procedure was not properly followed in this case and that it is prejudicial.

For example, he says, the last person to sign an LSU staff member’s termination is the chancellor. By doing this, he says, the chancellor is agreeing that the employee should be fired. However, in the grievance process, the final arbiter is also the chancellor--who has already rendered a judgment.

“Do you think it’s fair? I don’t think it’s fair,” Moran said. “I think anyone who is employed somewhere for six years, and puts so much of himself into his work, should at least know why he is being terminated. Or at least have an impartial hearing.”

It may not seem like much to ask, but consider that the state’s own governor admits he’s still trying to bring Louisiana “tip-toeing into the 20th Century.”

Consider also that Louisiana is the only state that adheres to the Napoleonic Code of civil law, rather then English common of law. One way this manifests itself is that the courts are limited in the application of the law to the given facts and may not be bound by legal precedents.

Consider finally that Moran is basing his case almost entirely on Seagrave’s version of events. He even allowed Seagrave to retrieve his own personnel records from the school and pass on only what he thinks is important.

So, when Moran is asked if Seagrave’s file contains any previous reprimands or reports of any ethical or professional misconduct, he says no, there have been no problems. But he has not personally seen the file. Only Seagrave has.

And the school is not telling us what it contains. Yet.

The answering machine at the Seagrave-Freeman apartment this week offers this musical advice: “Don’t worry, be happy.”

It is a pleasant thought. However, there is not much evidence that anyone here may be able to live by the sentiment. LSU officials have threatened to arrest Seagrave if he shows up at the track. He has received death threats from people who have written to express their opinion of his mixed marriage.

Seagrave is out of a job and looking at more than a year before he has a shot at clearing his name. Even if he wins in court, the likelihood that another college will hire him is dim.

“He’s killed his reputation,” said one coach. “The innuendo is terrible. There are some stories out there about him that are horrendous.”

Seagrave’s wife, Kathy Freeman, is taking a 90-day leave of absence from her job as a Baton Rouge police officer. She’s angry and hurt and a lot else.

“I hate how they are treating him,” she said.

Freeman, 27, grew up in Baton Rouge and said she has known prejudice. She says she won’t give in to it.

“I think, through it all, they wanted Loren and myself to break up,” said Freeman, a former hurdler at Southern University in Baton Rouge. “They think they’ll hurt him and in the process his wife will divorce him. They just don’t know. It’s only making our relationship stronger.”

Attorneys for both sides are adamant that they will see this case through to court. But . . .

Whose interest would it serve to train the court’s bright lights on the dark corners of this case?

Will LSU remain untainted by showing Seagrave to be of questionable ethical fiber?

Does the athletic department really want any more close scrutiny?

Can Seagrave afford to run the risk of taking the case to court, only to be ambushed by some past indiscretion that may come out?

Isn’t this the kind of of lawsuit that rubs something ugly off onto everyone it touches?

Might the judge’s decision not be the kind that finds everyone guilty?

The women’s track progam at LSU has certainly found success. The question now is, can it live with it?