By Zachary Huber | September 27, 2021 Florida Women's Basketball Coach Cameron Newbauer resigned July 16, citing personal reasons. The former head coach is accused of making racist remarks, throwing basketballs at players during practices and verbally abusing the team, assistant coaches and trainers. His resignation didn’t address any abuse allegations. Newbauer had signed a contract extension in June that would’ve left him as head coach until 2025. His contract detailed that he earned $500,000 annually. After his resignation, the Gators appointed associate head coach Kelly Rae Finley as interim head coach. Florida A D Scott Stricklin hired the former Belmont University head coach in March 2017. Newbauer replaced Amanda Butler, who held the position from 2007-2017 with a 190-137 record, .581 winning percentage and four NCAA Tournament appearances. Newbauer’s Gators, however, went 46-71 for a .393 winning percentage, the worst winning percentage for any head coach in Gators history during their first four seasons. The team also never made it to the NCAA Tournament once in his four seasons. Former Florida women’s basketball players detail abuse under Coach Newbauer - The Independent Florida Alligator
Florida AD Scott Stricklin responds to report exposing abusive culture in Gator women’s basketball program
Unless this becomes a major National news story I highly doubt the outrage lasts longer than a week. The only people outraged are ones on Twitter who are already constantly firing people every week so it’s nothing new.
Andrea Adelson is a UF grad who still has ties to the Journalism & Communications program. This primarily rehashes The Alligator story, but with Andrea and several other UF alums at ESPN and other national news/sports organizations this has the potential to not go away
The only reason this will be gone in a week is that it is Women's Basketball (not saying it is right, just how it is). It is a pretty huge mark against him. He extended him a month ahead of his "resignation." It is a big story across media outlets (ESPN was already mentioned, but it was front page at CNN as well). The stories are all including notes about the extension. The initial hire is something defensible (e.g., some variant of the "we didn't know" defense or scapegoating the staffer that did the vetting). If his argument is this was brought to his attention and it was not addressed properly, why is he out there giving him an extension? That is the type of thing that the administration of the University is going to want to know, because that is a bad look for the whole school. They will be looking to show people that this isn't the culture at UF (and historically, it has not been). The great fear is that it might not be a sport where the story will go away in a week next time. Or maybe it will be even more salacious. And, if that is the case, the administration is going to want to have shown that they did something to try to prevent it.
So fire our AD and risk torpedoing our entire athletic department over a coach who’s no longer with the program?
It is an attractive position still. Stricklin hasn't done much to show that he is not replaceable here yet. He needs some reason for the administration to think this won't happen with his upcoming hires.
Doesnt matter if it’s an attractive position or not. One wrong hire on an AD and our athletics department is screwed. SS saved our football program.
I think that both of those statements are exaggerations. Foley may have survived this with just that statement if it had occurred in the late 2000s or something. Stricklin is too new at the job to have built that kind of trust (especially after the probation issue). He is going to need to provide some evidence that his next hire won't be this bad. Because this isn't just that they didn't win, and the administration is going to care about the culture aspect of this.
