Deaton, Floyd reveal records

The muddled details surrounding former Missouri basketball coach Quin Snyder’s departure Feb. 10 became clearer Wednesday following the release of MU Chancellor Brady Deaton’s findings from his initial investigation into the matter.

The report, obtained by the Missourian on Wednesday, offers answers to the questions raised after Deaton’s public statement Feb. 15, which did not include who he had talked to or what he had found, following his two-day investigation.

As Deaton’s notes became available Wednesday, the two men in charge of a second, independent inquiry continued interviews in Columbia. Kansas City attorney Jean Paul Bradshaw said he and fellow investigator Dalton Wright, publisher of the Lebanon Daily Record, had seen Deaton’s findings last week. Bradshaw said they had used those documents as somewhat of a guide, but not a crutch, opting to re-ask questions of those involved.

Wright is a member of the board of directors of the Missourian Publishing Association, which publishes the Columbia Missourian.

Bradshaw said he couldn’t divulge what exactly his investigation aimed to find that Deaton’s investigation neglected, nor would he say what had been found thus far. He said that he thought the second investigation could add clarity to the matter by way of details beyond those in the first.

The newly-released facts of the first investigation included Gary Link, assistant to the athletic director and Tiger radio analyst, refusing to comment on the details of conversations he had with Athletic Director Mike Alden on Feb. 9. That conversation came a day before Snyder announced his resignation to the team. But, Link offers some insight into what he discussed with Snyder in the hours before he announced his intent to leave the program.

According to Deaton’s report, Link approached Snyder on the afternoon of Feb. 9, before the start of the team’s practice and said to the coach, “Quin, the team is not looking good. We know how the book is going to end; the question is how do we write the last chapter?”

Deaton’s report states that Snyder’s response at the time was, “I think I’m better off resigning.”

The report also states that Snyder was aware of expectations more than a year ago. In a meeting Feb. 8, 2005, following an NCAA investigation that turned up more than 42 infractions within the men’s basketball program, Alden informed Snyder that he would be retained as MU’s coach through the 2005-06 season. Snyder was also told that the conditions for continuing his contract after the 2005-06 season were that Missouri finish in the top half of the Big 12 Conference and qualify for the 2006 NCAA Tournament. Alden also stated, according to Deaton’s report, that if Snyder at any point felt the season was “going south”, he could offer his resignation with the promise that the university would “do the best (it) could to see that he was not hurt financially.”

On Oct. 3, 2005, however, during a meeting involving Snyder, Alden and Deaton, the coach “expressed concern about the conditions that had been placed on him and asked that (the university) provide a public statement in support of his continuing to coach through the end of his contract.” According to Deaton, he and Alden refused to make that statement.

Following a 90-64 loss to Baylor on Feb. 7, Missouri’s sixth-straight loss, Link approached Snyder at Alden’s request to discuss the coach’s future. Alden has since said that he asked Link to “see how (Snyder)’s doing, see if (coaching) is something he wants to continue to do.”

But Snyder, in a press conference held Feb. 14 to officially announce his resignation, said that he was told by Link that his contract would be terminated at season’s end, regardless of his team’s performance during the rest of the season.

At that point Missouri was 10-11 (3-7) and could have finished in the top six of the conference’s 12 teams, while a Big 12 tournament championship would have earned the team an automatic NCAA bid.

“I asked the question, ‘If we win, can this change? If we win the rest of our games, if we win the Big 12 tournament, does that alter the result in any way?’” Snyder said. “And I was told: We’re moving on.”

When asked whether it was theoretically possible, at that point, for Snyder to meet the conditions set forth by Alden, Link told Deaton: “Impossible! Oh, I guess it may have been mathematically possible, but it wasn’t going to happen, and we all knew it. Nobody worked harder than Quin to make this a successful season, but it just wasn’t coming together. We knew it was over.”

Link’s version of the events had not been made public before, and a second, independent investigation was ordered by UM System President Elson Floyd last week.

A concern expressed by several members of the UM System Board of Curators in urging for a second investigation was Deaton’s failure to ascertain what exactly Alden instructed Link to tell Snyder on Feb. 9.

And, according to Deaton’s report, Link stated that he “viewed his conversations with Mike and with Quin as strictly private and confidential and that he would not now, nor in the future, divulge the contents of those conversations.”

Link also offered an endorsement of Alden in the report, stating that “Alden has been a very successful athletic director as witnessed by the growth of the program and the success in so many of our programs. We’ve just had a real problem with basketball and we need to find new leadership and move on.”

Bradshaw, who is conducting the second investigation, said, “I don’t know if there’s unresolved issues. There’s always more that you can get, but I guess I would leave it at that.”

He said they talked to Link on Monday and talked to a new batch of people today. While refusing to name all those interviewed, Bradshaw said, “Everybody that we’ve talked to has answered every question that we have asked.”

Wright said they talked to six to eight people today, and that he was also pleased with their cooperation.

“I’ve really been impressed by the openness and the willingness of the people we’re interviewing,” Wright said.

The investigators intend to finish up interviews next week — though they haven’t determined a day — by asking a few new people questions, and going back for a few follow-ups, Bradshaw said.