How I Went From A Good University Citizen To the Poster Child For Serious Misconduct At TSU In 63 Days

Posted By: Sandra Daniels on October 12, 2015

HOW I WENT FROM A GOOD UNIVERSITY CITIZEN TO THE POSTER CHILD FOR SERIOUS MISCONDUCT IN 63 DAYS AT TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY by Joseph Daniels

On October 6, 2015, the Head Tennis Coach at TSU saw me hitting on the tennis courts at Hadley Park and he greeted me by breaking out into an impromptu version of the song, �I Ain�t Worrying About A Thing� while staring directly at me. He may not be worried, but I AM! Maybe he does not care about TSU, but I do.

I hope you saw my interview on October 10th on Fox News. The University responded by categorically denying any wrong doing and cited they exercised their right to not renew my scholarship under the one year provision. What they did not say was the one year renewal release is conditioned on the student-athlete not following the rules and in order to take my scholarship they had to prove I broke the rules.

One of the reasons the coach cited for my nonrenewal was I failed to attend strength and conditioning. I would like to share with you the details of this matter. All direct comments are in italics.

On March 16th, Coach texted me. He said, �Hey go with my Daniel every Tuesday and Thurs. this week for conditioning. It starts at 7:20am in the Gentry� (Attachment 1). When I asked Coach why I had to attend, he said punishment for not turning in my blue card (progress report) and for missing study hall. For the record, my normal conditioning time was 3:00pm - 4:00pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays; I attended every scheduled session. The 7:30am training session was in addition to my 3:00pm session. Only one student-athlete turned in his progress report and others missed study hall. With respect to study hall in the spring, I attended 31 out of 32 sessions or attended 97% of the time. It fact, my attendance was higher than anyone else�s on the team. One student-athlete was not even required to attend the requisite four hours pursuant to the academic services guidelines and missed 6.5 hours and another student-athlete missed 11 hours and attended 64% of the time. How do I know these details? Because when I requested my files, the Athletic Director did not take the time to properly redact the names on the documentation before she shared it with me. This violates TSU�s Standards of Conduct guidelines, specifically rule number 14, related to careless performance of her duties.

In my player meeting, the Coach cited serious misconduct as the reason for my release and refused to give me examples. He told me, �It will all come out in the appeals�! I asserted my FERPA rights and made a comprehensive information request for my files.
I was shocked at what I saw in my files. On April 21st, the Director of Strength Training sent my coach the following email. �Joseph Daniels was supposed to workout at 7:30am on Tuesday and Thursday throughout the tennis season. Since the start of the tennis season (February 22), Joseph has only made 3 out of 16 workouts. This is unacceptable!

There are a lot of things wrong with this situation and this particular piece of documentation that was used to release me.

1. I was the only person assigned to two a day conditionings as punishment (the University considers this hazing). By the Coaches own admission, I was one of the fittest athlete�s on the team (see my picture), therefore this work was not constructive. We actually had people on the team who were 25 to 35 pounds overweight and very unfit who were not required to attend conditioning at all. This is failure to enforce policies consistently and fairly.

2. On March 16th, I was given specific directions by my coach. He said, �Go with my Daniel this week. He did not say go next week or the week after. He gave me the place, time and the length of time I needed to attend. For the record, I followed those directions and attended all of the requested sessions.

3. My player meeting was on April 15th and I requested my files on April 17th. The Director of Strength Training sent his letter out on April 21st, nine days after the tennis season was over, six days after my player meeting and four days after my information request (It�s a little late don�t you think or was it to beef up the file)?

4. If you count two sessions a week, from February 22nd to April 10th, mathematically there was not even the opportunity to attend 16 sessions.

5. The timing does not match up. How could I have attending 7:30am training sessions during the week of February 22nd or the week of March 1st, when I was not even notified until March 16th. So, I was written up and held accountable for not attending conditioning the 21 days before I was even notified to attend.

6. I never did see the Director of Strength Training. I trained with another student and there was no sign in sheet.

7. The Director of Strength Training counted the week of February 22 (the practice log will show conditioning had not started for any player this week), he counted the week of March 1st (the University was closed for inclement weather, there was no school or work and he nor his staff reported to work), he counted the week of March 15th (This was spring break and we had matches) and he counted April 9th (this was a match day).

8. The Director of Strength Training knowingly and fraudulently submitted this malicious email to the Head Tennis Coach.

9. The Head Tennis Coach knowingly submitted this fraudulent and malicious documentation to my file as evidence of serious misconduct and as one of the reasons to release me from the tennis team.

10. The Head Tennis Coach knowingly submitted this fraudulent and malicious documentation as evidence into the appeals meeting, the University legal proceeding (libel) and gave a verbal testimony supporting such (slander).

11.

The information I just shared with you was provided to the Director of High School Relations (Chair of the Appeals) and the other Appeals Committee Members (Chief of Staff for Student Affairs, Director of Business Operations for Facilities Management, Enrollment Manager and Student Support Services, Campus Catering Director, Faculty Athletics Representative and Director of Financial Aid). All in all, the committee contained four Directors and one Chief of Staff. They failed to reconcile the above mentioned discrepancies I brought up in my appeals meeting. They were negligent in the performance of their duties and not surprisingly cited my lack of attending conditioning as one of their reasons for upholding my release. They aided and abetted the athletic department.

When the Head Tennis Coach signed up to coach college tennis, he took an oath to abide by the professional conduct and ethical standards of the International Tennis Association. In addition, when the Head Tennis Coach and the Director of Strength Training, signed their employment agreements, they both agreed to ��conform their conduct to the highest standards of honesty, morality and good citizenship.� They further agreed to ��abide by the constitution, bylaws and rules and regulations of the NCAA, and the constitution, bylaws and rules and regulations of the OVC�� Lastly, they agreed that they would not �commit any act that would violate the laws of the State of Tennessee or the laws of the United States of America.� They accepted the appointment to work for Tennessee State University under the abovementioned terms and conditions and then violated them.

Among other rules and regulations, they violated the NCAA's principles of honesty specifically, Bylaw 10.01.1 related to Honesty and Sportsmanship when they failed to administer, conduct or coach intercollegiate athletics with honesty. They violated NCAA Bylaw 10.1 and TSU�s, Code of Ethical Conduct (6.9) when they acted unethically. They also violated Section II Q( #12-Falisfication of any other university records) of TSU�s Standards of Conduct when they falsified my University records. The Disciplinary Action SECTION VII D1(g) on page 48 of the Tennessee State University Personnel Handbook is very clear regarding the ramification of violating this standard. It says, � 1. There are circumstances that will require immediate discharge, as in the following cases: g. Falsification of records or fraud.�

However, the implications here are far greater than just violating the rules and discrediting the University, the tennis coaching profession or the strength and conditioning profession as a whole. When the Coach breached his fiduciary responsibility to me as my coach, he did not just violate the rules, he violated me! He took something away from me you can�t get back. He took away my innocence and belief in the honesty, fairness and integrity of the University to do the right thing. He took away my ability to trust people placed in a leadership role over me will treat me with dignity and respect.

President Glover, as a student of Tennessee State University, there are certain rights that you have expressly covenanted to me. These are declared and communicated in multiple University publications too numerous to mention. I trusted you to keep those expressed and implied promises and commitments when I accepted the offer of admission to attend Tennessee State University, my parent�s alma mater. You deceived and misled me after Tennessee State�s Leadership failed to adhere to them.

In closing, I want to share with you an email the Assistant Athletic Director/Senior Women�s Administrator sent to the Head Tennis Coach on March 10th at 9:52 am. She was responding to him advising her that he had placed documentation in my file for me being �talkative� that day. By the way, I asked a six word question. She said, �Thanks for providing this information, as we must maintain a program of respect no matter the circumstance. You have my full support in communicating corrective actions to any and all of the tennis student-athletes..disrespect at any level is unacceptable�. Mrs. Assistant Athletic Director, the above-mentioned is clearly disrespect toward me, does disrespect toward people at my level count? What corrective actions will you take?

President Glover, I have been going through living hell since last March. You have been kept abreast of every development including multiple emails and letters to you from my parents and I. I have never once heard from you. There has been not one email in my box, not one phone call or letter where you have said Joseph, I am sorry that this happened to you, I would like to hear your side of the story; not even after I wrote you the Open Letter. After, you received my Open Letter, you delegated to a Vice President to follow up on behalf of the Office of the President. That would have been nice on the front end, but after eight months, I would really like to hear from the President. Of everything that bothers me, your actions or lack of actions continue to deeply, deeply trouble me more than anything.

Lastly, Eric Alvarez the FOX News Reporter, asked me why I stayed at TSU. I stayed at TSU to fight for past student-athletes who fled for more student-athlete friendly universities, I am here for current student-athletes who are being mistreated now, but are afraid to speak up and I am here to make sure this never happens to future students. I will fight tirelessly for the change we need to see.

For those out there who have shown me support, thank you. It means a lot. Please follow/subscribe to my blog on HBCU Connect at http://hbcuconnect.com/cgi-bin/blog. Over the next few weeks, I will share with you the details of what happened to me. If you did not receive a copy of my Open Letter To President Glover, you can read it there. Please share this information with your friends and family. Please help in demanding that the University does the right thing. After all, I could be your child, son, brother, nephew, grandson, cousin or friend. Lastly, Student�s REALLY DO Matter Most. I�m a student and they made me feel like I did not matter at all!

Respectfully Submitted On 10/12/15
Joseph Daniels
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Sandra Daniels
From Goodlettsville, TN
Tennessee State University class of 1983
Member Since October 2009

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