Gary Barta waited for the full report from the law firm, Husch Blackwell, and it confirmed what he already knew, he was fully in support of Kirk Ferentz continuing on as the leader of the Iowa football program. Barta opened the press conference discussing the findings in the report and also his thoughts on Brian Ferentz as a coach.
OPENING STATEMENT
Thanks for coming on short notice. Back on June 15 we were here and I spoke to you about some racial issues related to our football program. I announced the separation agreement with Chris Doyle, and I also announced that President Harreld had retained the services of an independent third party to do a review of the football program, and so Coach Ferentz and I are here today to respond to the review and then also just provide some updates and some perspective of things that have been going on since then.
We now have several sources of information, if you will, going back to the diversity task force, some very candid and frank conversations with former student-athletes directly and the same from our current student-athletes, and then now the report from the independent review.
For those of you who have gone through it, I'm sure you would understand when I say that getting direct and critical information, criticism, is sometimes difficult to hear. That said, we needed to hear these things, and we need to get better.
We talked a little bit about it in June, and you'll hear some of the same topics today.
I am grateful for every former student-athlete and current student-athlete who came forward. Two important dates related to this situation, June 3, when James Daniels began, the former player process -- and I mention James' name because he's in the report. I'm not going to mention other former players by name, but he spoke up and I'm grateful that he did.
And then on June 8, I referenced when we met the last time about a team meeting where current student-athletes were very candid in expressing their anger and frustration, and these conversations really opened the door to dig deeper.
When you combine those conversations with now this report, it makes it clear where we've fallen short and where we need to get better. It is helpful that all these sources are consistent, that the issues that we've been identifying and had identified going into this review, I certainly feel like there are consistencies in what we knew we had to get better in.
First of all, Kirk and I have had several conversations over the last several weeks, and these are some observations now and thoughts about the review, but they probably spill over into some of the other conversations.
Kirk, first and foremost, is responsible for the football culture. He creates it. He sets the tone for it, and he has to hold people accountable for it, and he's fully accepting of that responsibility, and he's worked hard in recent weeks to help us begin the process to improve the culture. At one point in the report he acknowledges that he gave too much responsibility, maybe too much unchecked authority to one individual, but beyond that, he acknowledges that it's broader than one person. It's an issue, a cultural issue throughout the program.
That said, on June 15, based on the information I had, based on my 15 years of working with Kirk, I shared that I still had great confidence that Kirk could lead us through this and continue to lead this football program. I take a lot of comfort in the fact that the report, after interviews with former student-athletes and current student-athletes, confirms that they share that confidence in Kirk's ability to move forward and lead this program.
Next observation, the "Iowa way" is described, perceived by many, especially our African-American student-athletes, as the white way. Some of the comments, and by now hopefully you've had a chance to read it, don't feel supported, don't feel welcome, can't be my authentic self, harder to succeed as a black player versus a white player. In the report is also a reiteration of Kirk's desired definition for the Iowa way: Earn a degree, maximize football success and have a fulfilling college experience.
Clearly there's a disconnect between the vision that Kirk has for the Iowa way and what he wants it to mean and the way it was being experienced by some of our student-athletes, and in particular our black student-athletes. That's an area where we need to focus. How do we get the vision that Kirk has for the Iowa way and have it be experienced the way he envisions, and that will be an important thing going forward.
Our student-athletes don't feel, haven't felt and need to feel that they have a place where they can be heard and where they can be listened to. Within the football program, there have been numerous individual conversations, position meetings, team meetings. I'll let Kirk describe those more since I have not been involved. I've been involved in a couple of team meetings. Historically Kirk has relied on a leadership group, and he'll continue to do that, but he's expanded that group and made some changes.
And then specifically one of the things we have to do a better job in as an athlete department is make sure that there are places, outside outlets for football student-athletes who have issues and concerns. They don't feel comfortable expressing them within football, that they have a place to go, and I'll talk about that here in a moment.
Recruiting, making sure that or in this case expressing concern that there's a disconnect between a message that we send in recruiting versus what some student-athletes experienced when they got here, particularly or specifically I think it was mentioned creating a family atmosphere versus then when I arrived not understanding that the Iowa way and the expectations that were connected to that. So a disconnect in that recruiting message.
There are several areas pointed out where we need to improve from these student-athletes, and I won't go into all of them. Again, Kirk will be able to more specifically speak to some of these. Appearance expectations, whether it's hairstyle, clothing, jewelry, tattoos, sleep bands, weight management, and then a reference to rules, and the number of rules, the way that they felt they're being held accountable to these rules or being called out if they weren't following these rules. As it pertains to rules, I don't think it'll come as a surprise, when you run an organization, when you have a team, you have to have rules. And so having rules isn't the challenge. The challenge is and my expectation is for football and for all of our teams, make sure the rules are fair, and in this case make sure that without any kind of racial bias, make sure that the expectations are well-known in terms of any rules, and then make sure that the follow-through, the carrying out of those rules or any discipline related to those rules is fair and consistent.
So that certainly came out in this report.
Strength and conditioning expectations and treatment. Kirk has already talked about some changes there in terms of job responsibilities, and drug testing was also mentioned and I'll talk about that in a moment.
Among this report or within this report, there's some good news, and again, I'm not downplaying the fact that this is very critical of some of the things we have to get better in, but what I say is good news and what I was grateful to hear is that -- and this is from the report -- there was uniformity from the current student-athletes that things have significantly improved since June. Now, understandably there are also some student-athletes in the group who are taking a wait-and-see attitude. They want to make sure that these improvements are long-term and not just a short-term reaction.
I'm going to move on to moving forward, and then several things that I'm going to mention moving forward, and then I'll let Kirk come up and say a few things. First of all, moving forward, I have great confidence in Kirk, and it all starts with him. His willingness to improve the culture in the areas that have been identified. He sets the tone, the expectations, and then needs to hold everybody accountable. I have been grateful and not surprised but impressed with the amount of energy and passion and work he's put into this going back to June, and we all agree that this is just the beginning.
A few things moving forward specifically: Strength and conditioning, Kirk can talk about it more if you have questions, but an acknowledgment that maybe some of those job responsibilities need to be spread out a little bit among the staff. From a reporting standpoint, the head strength coach for football does report to the head football coach. It also has a reporting line to assistant athletic director for sport performance Terry Noonan. One of the things we have to do -- and we have that throughout the athletic department. We have several dual reporting lines, either in athletics or then to areas on campus. In this case we just have to reinforce that reporting line and that relationship.
All of the strength coaches, the athletic trainers, the sports medicine team, the sports psychology and nutrition are all reporting through that sport performance group, and moving forward just making sure that those reporting lines are reinforced and carried through.
Under the area of the DEI accountability group that was previously named the diversity task force, DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion, was previously called the diversity task force, that's headed up by Broderick Binns. I know most of you if not all of you know we promoted Broderick, went from interim to permanent. He's now the executive director of diversity, equity and inclusion. He reports outside of football. He no longer has an office in football. He'll work closely with football but not report up through football.
He's had that diversity, equity and inclusion accountability group meet a couple of times now, and they've had conversations. You may recall back to June, one of the things we want to do is make sure there is a bridge between a team sport and any resources they may need or desire somewhere else on campus, and one of the things we've talked about with this DEI accountability group is certainly building relationships and trust with student-athletes, making sure they understand it's a place they can go if they have questions -- not always concerns, might just be questions, want advice, but certainly if they do have concerns it's a place they can go and create a bridge to some other resource on campus if they need it. Looking at culture, team rules and relationship.
And then annually that group reporting to the president, to myself, to the head coaches, because this position in this group is for all sports, not just for football, but certainly in this case that report will go to Kirk in terms of how things are going in his sport and also the President's Committee on Athletics, the PCA.
Student-athletes having a voice and engagement, again, ongoing conversations individually and in the team environment in football along with the leadership group. Kirk may have already expressed publicly about the leadership group and expanding it, but it is also in the report.
And then continued engagement with the former player advisory committee that Kirk put together, working on getting advice on graduation rates, on recruiting, on culture, team expectations, and then life after football, helping our football players as they get ready to enter the world, whether it's networking, career advice, et cetera.
As it pertains to recruiting, just reevaluating all facets of recruiting, specifically addressing that concern between what we represent and the experience and very specifically talking about that expectations. If we're going to use the term "Iowa way," I don't know if we will or if Kirk will or not, but clearly understanding when you become a Hawkeye, this is what you can expect. And then having those groups, the leadership group, the former player advisory committee and the DEI accountability group, having an opportunity to look at those recruiting changes and give their advice on how that's working.
Drug testing, we have reviewed all of our policies, protocols and procedures. We do feel that those are where they need to be. Just want to make sure that they're transparent, they're consistent, and then making sure -- we have not audited them on an annual basis, but for the next several years and maybe ongoing, we'll have them audited again toward that goal of -- by somebody outside of athletics toward that goal of just making sure there's transparency, and then the final moving forward, the report does indicate that they provided us with four personnel reports on either current or former employees, and based on that information -- it was anything where there was an allegation that was directed toward an individual, and so based on that information, the first thing I'm going to share with you is that there are no personnel changes planned. We will and have begun the process of internal follow-up. That internal follow-up will occur privately and it will follow university HR policies and procedures.
And then more broadly in terms of education and training moving forward, football has been included in and involved in training for the whole athletic department. They will continue to be involved in that, and then Kirk and I have talked about also some specific training just for football in the areas of unconscious bias, micro-aggressions, racial injustice, et cetera.
In really a broad sense, that's what's happened in areas of our football program. We've made mistakes. We're working hard to correct them. They're not going to be corrected overnight. I want to again apologize to any former student-athletes, current student-athletes who have had a bad experience within Iowa football, and we're going to work hard to earn everybody's trust moving forward.
This report focuses on football, but the lessons and improvements that we've talked about and that we're learning apply to all of our sports throughout the entire department. We've already had individual team meetings, all-staff Zoom meetings that Broderick has already organized over the past several weeks, and that's important to continue.
Finally, the Big Ten has created an anti-hate, anti-racist task force. We have a couple of representatives. One of the representatives not an Iowa student but a student-athlete from another school said the following, and it just fits perfectly with what we're going through: This is a process, not an event. And the changes need to be long lasting, not just a news cycle.
I agree with those sentiments. I know Kirk shares those, as well, and so a lot of good changes are underway, but realizing that it's going to be a process and it's going to need to be ongoing.
Q. Gary, the majority of players you met with were current players. Was that by design? If you total up based on the bar graph, it was maybe 17 or 18 former black players were --
GARY BARTA: So I don't know if it was by design or not. Remember, an independent review truly is an independent review, so they came up with a strategy. What I've read is what you've read, that they interviewed about I think it was 111. I do know this. I know that they offered to meet with every current student-athlete. I didn't ask why that strategy, but it makes sense to me because people currently living in the environment wanting to give that group the most opportunity. I don't know exactly how they selected the former players. I do know they've said it in the report that they were reviewing a lot of the social media, and then every time they spoke to somebody, I was told they asked is there anybody else we should talk to.
Again, it wasn't by design in terms of -- I don't think President Harreld gave them that direction. I think that's just the strategy they used.
Q. Are you the one who ultimately decided that no additional punishment for coaches or staff members should --
GARY BARTA: Ultimately that's my responsibility. Obviously taking in all the information. It's not a done situation yet, but I felt confident enough to share with you today that we don't have any changes in employment in terms of who's here and who's not. But the follow-up is still ongoing in terms of moving forward.
But I did feel confident, and yes, that's my responsibility. Certainly in one case, if it's an employee that reports to me or reports to Kirk, we'll talk those things through, but ultimately, yes.
Q. Was Husch Blackwell empowered to give you things that go in personnel files, or was that up to university discretion?
GARY BARTA: I don't know exactly how President Harreld and Carroll Reasoner -- they do these reports. They work in higher education a lot. I do know that our attorneys make it clear that conversations about personnel matters must be private, so that I'm sure played into it. You don't see specific personnel mentions in the report, and I think that's pretty standard for legal reasons, so I'm not sure exactly how everything vetted out.
Q. So they're not officially in the university files?
GARY BARTA: The information that they shared with us?
Q. Yes.
GARY BARTA: That will go into their personnel files, yes.
Q. Do you feel like you should be transparent about those things? Do you feel the need to be?
GARY BARTA: No, because it's against the law. I get what you're saying, and if we separate with somebody, that becomes very public. But in terms of personnel costs and performance evaluations, those are never public discussions. I understand why you're asking, but...
Q. Do you feel like -- the Brian situation is something that he was second to Doyle probably in terms of complaints. Do you feel like you need to have a firmer, I guess, relationship with him in regards to some of these things?
GARY BARTA: Well, I know this. I'm going to take those four letters that I received and I'm going to go through all of them and based on what they shared with us, we're going to make decisions to move forward. My relationship with Brian, I've shared in previous conversations, we really do have personnel discussions. We really do have performance evaluations. I really do have conversations with Brian because of the fact that his dad is the head coach, but beyond that, again, we'll take anything in those files and we'll react to them based on what's in those letters and react to them based on those letters.
Q. How can you say you're not going to fire anybody if you don't know what's in the file yet?
GARY BARTA: No, I've read the letters. I've read the letters. I'm sorry if I gave that impression. I've seen the letters.
Q. Do you believe there was systemic racism in your football program?
GARY BARTA: I'm not an expert in systemic means. Did we have a culture that was not fair? Yeah. Yeah, I believe that. I'm not ready to use a term for it, but we have to have an environment where everybody feels like they're being treated fairly and equitably, and we've learned that that wasn't happening across the board.
Q. What gives you the confidence that the same leadership can fix the problems?
GARY BARTA: Good question, but again, as I've described before, I have had a chance to work with Kirk now for 15 years, so that's a starting point. I've watched him make changes when he's needed to make changes during my time. I've listened and we've had several conversations about his desire to change, and so in this case immediately took responsibility, immediately started working through and finding out where we needed to head, and then as I mentioned at the outset, I believed this would be the case, but I was very pleased to see that the conversations with former and current players confirmed what I believed, that Kirk is a leader that can move forward with this program.
Q. When you met previously with James Daniels, did he ever discuss Chris Doyle and his impact on the program and the power that he wields?
GARY BARTA: I'm not going to talk about specific discussions I've had with current or former players, but through previous conversations, and Kirk alluded to this, when someone would bring something up, it was probably less direct, less specific to an individual necessarily, and compared to the way it is now and compared to the way it has been since June 8. Again, I'm not going to go into conversations that I've had with individuals.
Q. Do you think that the situation that unfolded regarding rhabdo and then the aftermath had any impact on Chris Doyle becoming as powerful a figure in the football program as he did?
GARY BARTA: I don't know about that. I know for those of you who were around back then, I didn't know what rhabdomyolysis was at that time. I third party did come in and review everything and we made changes moving forward, so I felt comfortable with the way we worked through that and have worked through that since then.
Q. With regards to Brian, he's a guy that's kind of worked his way up the ladder, probably aspirations to potentially be a head coach sometime. With what you know about him and what you've learned, would he be a guy that you'd be comfortable hiring as a head coach if he keeps progressing the way that he has? Is there anything you've learned that would make that kind of like off the board, off the table?
GARY BARTA: I certainly have opinions about all of our staff -- it's fine for you to ask, but I'm not comfortable sharing. I've watched Brian grow from being an offensive line coach, I've watched him grow into being an offensive coordinator, and I have appreciated a lot of that growth, but that's probably as far as I'll go right there. But he and I have talked a lot about his future over the years.
Q. So you haven't learned anything that would eliminate that possibility at all?
GARY BARTA: Again, I'm just going to continue to move forward and have conversations with him privately about what his career goals are and any way that I can help as he's working toward those goals.
Q. This question isn't meant to be asked in an interrogative vein, but how does an athletic director and how does a head coach, how are they not fully aware or how do they become unaware of problems of the magnitude that this one has had?
GARY BARTA: No, I'm fine with you asking. That's a fair question to ask. I described a little bit back in June. I didn't go into any more detail, but I indicated at the time, we were made aware that there were some issues. We didn't have all the specifics we have today, and we set out a plan to try to work on those issues and get better.
Again, I'm admitting fully at this point that I thought some of the plans that we had put in place were working. I thought things were getting better. What was I basing that on? When I would walk through the building, when I would go to practice, when I would go to games, when I would travel on the road with the team, my personal observation was that things seemed very cohesive and very positive. I would watch former players, black or white, come back to Kinnick Stadium and see the excitement and the camaraderie between coaches and former players that were coming back. I was getting reports through exit surveys and interviews that were positive.
Again, I go back to were we asking the right questions. Were they comfortable, even though they were anonymous in the surveys being frank with us. The answer is probably not. So we've got to find a better way, as Kirk was saying, to get people to feel comfortable speaking freely, and we have to make sure that they have a place they can go if they're not comfortable talking to me, if they're not comfortable talking to Kirk or anybody on his staff, and I do envision maybe it's the leadership group that's now feeling more empowered. Maybe it's the former player advisory committee. Maybe it's the diversity, equity and inclusion group. We just have to make sure, one, we're listening, and two, they have a place to go if they don't think we are listening. I thought things were improving. I was wrong. We've acknowledged that, and we're working hard to move forward.
Q. Gary, you executed the separation agreement with Chris before you engaged with Husch Blackwell. After you read the report, did that confirm that that was the right action to take?
GARY BARTA: Yes and no. I think Kirk described pretty clearly the conversations that he had, what led to that point and just the decision at that point that in order to move forward -- I think I even said it that way on June 15, in order to move forward, we felt this was the way we needed to go.
I still feel like that was the right decision. I don't know if it's based on a report, but I still feel like that was the right decision.
Having the former -- the current players indicate that things are much better -- again, I'm not attributing it to one person because that's not the case, but I do still feel like it was the right decision, not just based on one report but based on just kind of the totality of where the team feels like it is right now.
Q. How confident are you that this environment doesn't exist in other sports?
GARY BARTA: I'm not going to be confident just by assuming it. One of the reasons we do have the diversity, equity accountability group, one of the reasons -- and that initial report going back to the diversity task force was not all football. It was our entire department. If you go back to why we created it in the first place, black male student-athlete graduation rates being significantly lower than our white male student-athletes. We're the ones that -- that happens nationally at some level, but we wanted to do something about it at Iowa, and we're going to, and it's still very high on our list of goals, and I'm not assuming that everything is perfect or going well in any other sports, and there have been a lot of discussions. I've been encouraged by all the discussions going on in the department with members of our staff, black members of our staff. I've been encouraged by some of the team meetings that are going on, both black and white student-athletes, but having great conversations to learn more and understand each other better. I'm not assuming that -- I'm assuming that we've got to make sure there are no issues like this in other teams.
Q. What impact could Broderick have on this process?
GARY BARTA: Well, one, Broderick is an incredibly sharp person who has grown up in this department. He played here. He understands the University of Iowa. He understands Iowa athletics, and one of the things I've seen in him -- first of all, he was very confident in his role in football, and I knew that he had some passion to go not a different route but beyond just football, and I have seen when we named him interim back in I think it was August of last year, there's just a passion that he has in his eyes every day, starting then that I've seen continue. He understands the role. He's been a former student-athlete here, so he certainly can relate.
One of the things that was important, though, in order for him to be effective in my opinion, and this isn't a knock on football, he has to be seen as not a staff member of football, he has to be seen not as someone who reports to the head football coach but somebody who reports outside of football, reports to the athletic department but also has a reporting line to the university diversity, equity and inclusion, the head of that area.
I think he can be very effective. I took way too long to get to that. I think he can be very effective for those reasons. And he's now experienced something that most people who work in those roles, if they happen to be African-American themselves, they can relate to that, whereas obviously I can't, but now Broderick has worked through something that is as public and as challenging and he's been involved in these challenging conversations. I think he's also helped us with our entire staff in coordinating these kinds of learning and listening conversations. He's had a lot of experience real quickly in that job and is doing an amazing job.
Q. What have been the opinions and your conversations with Bruce Harreld regarding this?
GARY BARTA: You know, Bruce is somebody who tells it like it is. Absolutely the first time he started to hear about where this was headed, he expected me, Kirk to make sure we handled it appropriately. Don't try to sugar coat it. Let's go forward. Let's find out where the issues are, and let's fix them. He's been very supportive of Kirk remaining as the leader. That was a conversation I had with him early on, and he didn't waver on that for a lot of the same reasons that I shared with you. His expectations are this better get better. It better improve. He expects it from both Kirk and myself. But also very supportive.
Q. Did you share the diversity task force report with him?
GARY BARTA: He had it from the very beginning.
