Openly
gay University of Missouri head lacrosse coach Kyle Hawkins
was informed Friday, May 4, that his contract will not be
renewed for the 2007-'08 school year.
Hawkins was informed of his termination in a meeting with a
Missouri lacrosse leadership group that consisted of
captains of the team, faculty advisors, assistant coaches,
and a representative of the University. Hawkins said the
group asked him to resign and he refused. His contract will
run out May 31.
The Missouri lacrosse team is not a varsity sport, but
rather a club team affiliated with the school. There are no
scholarships, and the decision-making of the team rests
largely on the shoulders of the players, not school
administrators or coaches.
"The players were the major part of it," the team's faculty
advisor, Karen Mitchell, told Outsports. Mitchell is a
graduate student at Missouri who said she has never played
lacrosse. "There were comments from players, parents, and I
had concerns. But our biggest concerns were the opinions of
the current players."
The commissioner of the Great Rivers Lacrosse Conference, of
which Missouri is a part, Brian Mosher told Outsports that
decisions like these are not a surprise coming from
student-run sports teams.
"You see these kids who think they know better than anybody
else, and I don't think they think long-term as to what the
ramification on the program is going to be," Mosher said.
"Missouri is taking three big steps backward, and they're
going to have a hard time in the next four to five years
being competitive at all. I just think it was not a very
wise move, a bad decision for the program overall. In a year
or two, they will regret it."
Hawkins first contacted Outsports in 2004 when he was
looking for advice on how to balance his sexuality and
coaching. Soon after, he joined the Outsports discussion
board anonymously as "Frustrated Coach" and for almost two
years received advice from Outsports community members. He
publicly revealed his identity and sexuality in June 2006.
Asked his opinion on whether his homosexuality in part led
to his firing, Hawkins would not comment. Mitchell said it
was never a part of the conversation.
"I can tell you that I spent nearly every game with this
team in the fall and in the spring season," Mitchell told
Outsports. "I got to know the guys very well. I've had a lot
of one-on-one and small-group conversations with them. I can
tell you that his sexuality has been a non-issue with this
team. The issues for this team have been Kyle's performance
as a coach."
Mitchell said the team considered letting Hawkins go last
year, but decided not to because he came out of the closet.
"If they let him go last year, it would have been, 'Oh my
god, he came out and then they fired him,' " Mitchell said.
"They didn't want that to be the perception. So, his
contract was renewed with the understanding that this year
he needed to improve his coaching ability."
Mosher said that Kyle's sexuality has never been an issue
for him, and as far as he knows it has not been an issue for
anyone in the conference.
"I can say, within our conference board meetings, it's not a
topic of discussion," Mosher said. "Even in my conversations
with coaches individually, I haven't heard anything. At
Missouri State you have coach Daren Turner, who's a Southern
Baptist minister. And even in my conversations with Daren,
it never came up. The only time it came up was somebody
called me, as the conference director, to get my take on it,
and I said it has no bearing on anything. Anything about him
personally is irrelevant to me."
Hawkins said he was given eight primary reasons for the
team's decision not to renew his contract. Those included,
according to Hawkins, some players' unhappiness with his
practice structure; that the team felt he had a negative
reputation outside the school; and that some of his actions
have reflected negatively on the team. Hawkins said that the
reasons are ridiculous.
"I've been here for nine years," Hawkins told Outsports,
"and I have a ridiculously good record."
According to Hawkins, his nine-year record at Missouri is
127-58. This past season Missouri lacrosse had a record of
6-9; it was the team's first losing season under his
tutelage. Of the 26 players listed on the team Web site, 18
are underclassmen.
"The win-loss record wasn't even a consideration," Mitchell
said. "It didn't even come up when were talking about
whether or not to renew his contract."
Mitchell said that the decision stemmed primarily from
discontent with Hawkins expressed by players on the team.
"A lot of the team members felt that practices weren't being
well-utilized," Mitchell said. "They were doing a lot of
unnecessary routines and exercises and not enough kinds of
practices of things that they did need, like shooting
exercises. We felt he wasn't doing a good job as a coach."
Mosher was shocked to hear questions about Hawkins' coaching
ability.
"That's nonsense," Mosher said. "He's coached high school
lacrosse and coached at Missouri for 10 years and been
successful at it. He's coached camps, and he's had big
varsity coaches come work their camp for him. And he's had
kids come to his own camp and return the next year. I would
say he's a very good teacher."
This past season, Missouri had the top scorer in the Great
Rivers Lacrosse Conference, Blaine Skrainka, and the No. 5
scorer in Chris Nagel. Eight Tigers received Division A All-GRLC
Team honors.
Mitchell said another issue with Hawkins was that he did not
represent the school or the team well on road trips, and
that he did not have a good reputation.
"If that's one of their claims, I certainly disagree,"
Mosher said.
Mosher said Hawkins is one of the strongest advocates of
inclusion in lacrosse, and because of that he sometimes
butted heads with coaches and programs that Mosher described
as more elitist.
"Kyle is very passionate about the game and his
suggestions," Mosher added. "Kyle wasn't an ass about
anything, but he wasn't one to back down because you
disagreed with him. And ultimately, his opinion was often
the one they chose down the road."
Hawkins said he has spoken to other coaches in the
conference and that they have expressed "shock" at his
firing. Hawkins said he will likely look for another
coaching job elsewhere, and that he already received an
offer from a rival school the day he learned of his firing.
Mosher said that Hawkins will be a hot commodity in the
offseason:
"The teams that are in this to win would want someone like
Kyle on the sidelines. It's very difficult to find a guy
who's established, knows what he's doing for the most part,
is in the top 30 coaches of all the 200 of us in the
country, which I'd say Kyle is. He has a lot to offer, and
he's been willing to do it. At our level, to find someone
who's willing to do it for more than a year or two is tough.
Kyle is willing to make the commitment, put in his own time
and money to build a program, and I think that says a lot.
In our neck of the woods, anybody looking for a coach would
have to entertain the idea if he sent in his resume."
ESPN has been developing a story segment on Hawkins that
will air later this month.
Openly
gay University of Missouri head lacrosse coach Kyle Hawkins
was informed Friday, May 4, that his contract will not be
renewed for the 2007-'08 school year.