After a handful of weeks and 6.5 million dollars awarded in settlements, the Jane Meyer-Tracey Griesbaum-Gary Barta saga is over, for now. A Title IX investigation is pending, and could be in that state for a long while. It was a sad month and a half, and as Jordan Hansen wrote, it shouldn’t have come to this.
It did, however, and once Barta gets canned late on a Friday afternoon in the coming weeks, hopefully it’ll all be past us. For Griesbaum and Meyer, however, they’re saying it already is. The former sat down with the Register earlier this week to wrap the situation, we’ll walk you through a few main takeaways below. We recommend taking a look at the videos in the story as well.
- Griesbaum said she felt a culture shift as early as 2010 in the athletic department with the firing of several female head coaches. While Barta pointed to poor on-field performance, Griesbaum said she “felt like I knew them well enough to know that this is not appropriate, that they shouldn’t be losing their jobs in this manner. I don’t know what I would have done if I was the first person, the first female coach at Iowa, to lose their job.”
- The anguish and raw emotion Griesbaum said she felt after losing her job was extremely painful, however she’s found a way to use it for the better, and hopes to continue using it for the betterment of gender equality in sports as her life goes on. She’s not sure if she’ll coach Division I field hockey again.
- As expected, there isn’t any bad blood between Griesbaum and her replacement, Lisa Cellucci — Griesbaum said she’s her best friend, however she has not been to a field hockey practice or game. “I I wanted to make sure that my presence wasn’t a distraction.”
- She said she hasn’t spoken to Barta since August 4, 2014 when she was fired. Will they speak again? “If it’s really about making the University of Iowa and the athletic department better. That’s always been what I’ve wanted to do.”
A few miscellaneous happenings around Hawkeyeland before we move on to something having nothing to do with Iowa.
- Jake Adams is a big huge beast, but apparently doesn’t know where his longball count ranked in comparison to the rest of the NCAA.
- Oh yeah, he was also named Big Ten Player of the Year. The Hawks also put four guys on the second all-conference team.
- James Daniels is on the Rimington Award Watch List.
- Take a look at Max’s Big Ten Baseball Tournament here. Rick Heller in the spotlight? Sign me up!
- There will be no Game Time League this summer. With new NCAA rules in place, commissioner Randy Larson doesn’t see a deep enough talent pool to have seven or eight quality teams. The Prime Time League will go on as planned.
For those fellow Netflix addicts out there, one of the biggest days of the calendar is Friday — release of the third and final season of Bloodline. I’m not sure how much this will play here, but thought it was worth a discussion with not a lot going on elsewhere in the world. Let’s talk television!
Obligatory spoilers ahead tag
After two seasons of suspense, high drama, and beautiful cinematography, we last saw the Rayburn family coming apart at the seams. Kev bludgeoned Marco to death with a metal dolphin (why wasn’t it a seahorse?!), John was on his way out of the Keys, and Meg had just arrived at her mother’s presumably to come clean about Danny’s murder.
It was near impossible to live up to the spectacular first season, and although it dragged a bit, season two was strong in its own right. Seeing as there are a host of loose ends to tie up, I don’t expect this one to bore viewers.
It took 23 episodes for the Rayburns to reach what seems like a breaking point in their saga, the final 10 will give us the fallout. The trailer above tells us John won’t be on the road for long, teases that Roy Gilbert may play a bigger role in the family’s downfall, and justice — of the legal or vigilante variety — is in store.
What say you, Bloodline fans? Will the Rayburns come away clean or go up in flames like the boat carrying Danny’s body? Let’s discuss.