MacLennan apologies harm NIC's good guys

The North Idaho College athletic department fiasco has been scandalous.

No, I’m not talking about the supposed infractions and the subsequent draconian penalties imposed by the Northwest Athletic Conference.

What’s been truly scandalous is the reaction of NIC President Richard MacLennan, who has embarked on what you can only call an “apology tour.”

MacLennan’s bowing continually to the spiteful NWAC has disgracefully cast doubt on the integrity of NIC itself, on some truly honorable student-athletes and on a handful of loyal, honest employees who deserved none of this.

Al Williams, the athletic director who was tossed into the street by MacLennan and the NIC hierarchy, is a man so honest that if I won the lottery, I’d let him bring me the money.

In a suitcase.

In cash.

And every dime would be there, just as it was when the NIC athletic department was audited and came out clean as a whistle.

Williams, his staff and the school’s coaches were working off a transition plan set up by the president and trustees — and signed off by the NWAC itself.

They simply didn’t anticipate how much the rest of this minor-league conference resents NIC and its national reputation in several sports.

IF YOU don’t believe me, ask MacLennan to show you the documents regarding NIC’s transition plan — the FY2015 version and then another update done two years later.

Compare those lists of rules for the switch to the NWAC, and you’ll find that NIC was guilty of nothing that called for any punishment at all, let alone the cruel, snarky, outrageous sentences imposed by the conference’s new bosses.

I think we probably could have guessed that there would be some jealousy toward NIC’s nationally successful programs — and the school’s years governed by the NJCAA along with competition in the far more prestigious Scenic West Athletic Conference.

The NIC booster club includes many, many members of this county’s business and education movers and shakers, and plenty of ‘em are outraged by MacLennan throwing his athletic department to the wolves — not to mention letting the booster club itself be cast as a gang of cheaters.

I wonder if we might see some community leaders in attendance at tonight’s meeting of the NIC trustees, because the several I’ve contacted are steaming.

MacLennan and his bosses may get a tongue-lashing that would make a sailor blush, if some of the people who’ve supported his institution for years with time, effort and money show up to demand an explanation for the president turning on his own people.

You never know if angry folks will actually confront a group like the NIC trustees in the same language they’re using with each other — and with members of the media.

It’s possible they’ll be quieter and more polite, but maybe not.

But should they actually let ’er loose, what will be the trustees’ reaction?

IF THE president is surprised by some serious blowback, he’s been living in a cave.

And inside that cave, he’s been clinging to an undying loyalty to the NWAC simply because he used to work in that conference — and doesn’t realize that his old pals are undercutting him, too.

I want to be clear that I’m not criticizing Richard MacLennan as the man in charge of an educational institution. I’ll leave that to people who know far more about NIC’s complete mission than I do.

However, I do know from long experience that college presidents, first, can be tone deaf to what’s happening in their athletic departments; and second, quite often you find that a college’s upper tier of administrators is unaware just how much sustained success in sports can boost the entire institution — its stature, its appeal to prospective students (non-athletes), and of course its ability to raise money.

Memo to President MacLennan: Your apologies unfortunately are worthless.

Perhaps they were made in good but misplaced faith. Sadly, they’ve accomplished nothing except to torpedo your own credibility at NIC and throughout this area.

The NWAC doesn’t give a hoot if you’re saying sor ry, even if you were whimpering on your knees.

That conference wants NIC out, Mr. President, and if you had looked honestly at those absurd charges and the laughable penalties imposed, you might have smelled the coffee — and avoided taking a really terrible path in this thing.

THE NEW administration at the NWAC isn’t what you remember from your days when it was all cookies and cheesecake in the era of the late commissioner Jim Jackson.

This is the reign of new czar Marco Azurdia, and things have flipped dramatically.

The anti-NIC sentiment that has probably always run through many NWAC schools has now been turned loose to run amok by the conference office.

They invented violations and made the punishment nasty as hell so you’d quit — just take your athletes and go away.

Simple as that.

They don’t want NIC in that Mickey Mouse conference.

Obviously that crude and dishonest message didn’t get through — so instead, you trusted your old NWAC buddies rather than putting your faith in all those good people working for you in NIC athletics.

Shame on you for turning on your own people...your own family, so to speak.

But don’t just believe me. Just listen carefully tonight.

You run a community college, and...

In this case, you’ve embarrassed the community.

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Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns for The Press appear on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Steve also contributes the “Zags Tracker” package on Gonzaga basketball once monthly during the offseason.

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