The man at the center of these scandals is new NJ.com sports reporter Dan Duggan. Duggan joined NJ.com last week after working at the Boston Herald, and he appears to be an unethical muckraker. He has written not one, but two pieces attacking the character of two Rutgers football coaches, while only seeking comment from disgruntled ex-Scarlet Knights and not from either of the men whose character he is defaming, or anybody else.
The first controversial story he broke was allegations of bullying brought against defensive coordinator Dave Cohen by former cornerback Jevon Tyree, who recently quit the team. Tyree and his family allege that last spring, Cohen verbally abused him during a study hall session, getting in his face, yelling and calling him a pussy, amongst other things. Why he is only bringing these allegations to light now is sketchy. He is clearly unhappy because he was not seeing the field after all the attrition Rutgers has had in the secondary, especially after having a wide receiver jump him on the depth chart. That is one reason to question his motives. He may very well have been bullied, but there is plenty of reasonable doubt at the moment.
We have no idea what actually happened here, so nobody on the outside -fans, media, etc- should rush to judgment either way. But of course, in today's society that is impossible. All we know for sure is that there was a verbal confrontation between Cohen and Tyree in April and Kyle Flood was made aware of it in September and reprimanded Cohen in a way he deemed fit. Julie Hermann was also made aware at some point, but all she has done in this situation is continue her pathological lying, so she is irrelevant here. Say what you will about Flood as a coach, but he is a good honest man and I believe him when he says he handled the situation. This brings me to the next controversy.
Just days after breaking the Cohen/Tyree story, Dugan went back to his muckraking ways and contacted former Rutgers cornerback Ian Thomas, who had also recently quit the team. When Thomas left the program, Flood announced that it was because he had decided to pursue a baseball career. Thomas denied that, and said he has no idea where that came from. Dugan never reached out to Flood to comment on his story, in which basically called the coach a full on liar.
The next day, Flood was reportedly as angry as anybody had ever seen him, as he stood by his word, mentioning that Thomas told not only him, but senior linebacker Jamal Merrell about his intentions to play baseball as well. Tom Luicci of the Star Ledger spoke with an academic adviser at Rutgers who had helped Thomas pursue baseball opportunities, solidifying Flood's word.
Two big stories on Dugan's first week on the job, one turned out to be a bold face lie, and the other is still up in the air. He appears to just be trying to make a name for himself, ethics be damned. And it's working for him personally. He got to make an appearance on ESPN! And in that appearance, he spoke about how well Tyree played in Rutgers spring game, which was seven months before he started covering the team.
Seeking comment from more than one side of a story is journalism 101. And it's not like he is a rookie, he covered sports in Boston for six years. If you are going to flat out call someone a liar or a bully or anything else, you need to seek comment from them so they can tell their side of the story. It would also help if maybe he could talk to some other people with in the program about these two issues, rather than just the two disgruntled ex-players. Luicci did that with the academic adviser, as well as some players on the team. He is a true pro. Dugan, on the other hand, is just a self promoter who is doing a good job of that at the cost of his journalistic soul. Sadly, those are the people who make it big in the industries now a days coughJason WhitlockcoughSkipBaylesscough.
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