Coach Lonergan at GW Is Allegedly Going Crazy, Including Telling Players The AD Jerks Off To Their Practice Tape
WaPo - In early April, shortly after his team celebrated a postseason championship, a George Washington men’s basketball player visited a campus Title IX coordinator to log complaints about Coach Mike Lonergan. Lonergan, the player believed, had created an offensive, uncomfortable environment, evidenced in his mind — and in the minds of many of his teammates — by the spate of transfers during the coach’s five-year tenure.
After each of the past four seasons, three players have transferred out of GW, bringing the total to 13 in Lonergan’s five years. Over the past two seasons, according to people familiar with the situation, the school has fielded complaints from players about Lonergan. While university administrators addressed the concerns with Lonergan, according to a school official, there have been no public consequences.
For some players, leaving GW represented the best of a handful of ineffectual recourses. They could transfer, which would mean leaving their school of choice and losing a year of playing eligibility per NCAA rules. They could entrust campus officials to scrutinize Lonergan’s behavior, which, to their understanding, already had happened and resulted in no significant change. Or they could stay and play for a coach whose behavior they viewed as bizarre and abusive.
“I don’t think the guy should be in sports,” one former player said. “I don’t think what he said should be tolerated. I would like to stay at GW. I will not play for Mike Lonergan.” “A lot of kids transfer because they have delusions of grandeur,” said one former member of the GW men’s basketball staff. “Nobody transferred from GW with delusions of grandeur. They just transferred because they hated him. They couldn’t stand another second of him.”
One player described Lonergan’s demeanor as tamer this past season, but the target of his invective shifted toward Athletic Director Patrick Nero, and the nature of Lonergan’s comments frequently made the season untenable for many players.
Players said Lonergan shared his distaste for Nero in a manner both inappropriate and outlandish. Five current and former players said Lonergan told players Nero requested the practice tapes so he could masturbate while viewing them in his office. The players said Lonergan also told them Nero had engaged in a sexual relationship with a member of the team. Players said they found those comments to be shocking and offensive, with no grounding in reality.
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Many Colonials players expressed pride in George Washington, saying they cherished teammates and loved the school itself. Some who transferred lamented not finishing their careers there. In the end, they felt they had no choice. “I was at GW for .?.?. good years,” one former player said. “Me and some of my best friends, we just couldn’t do it anymore.”
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Bizarre story coming out of the Post today about coach L over at GW. Bizarre to say the least. Claims of nonstop verbal harassment, claiming the AD jerked off to their practice tapes, and players transferring because they downright hated being around Lonergan. I highly suggest reading the whole thing, but I bolded the important stuff above. The cliff notes are:
– 13 players have transferred in the last 5 years, but most are not because of disputes over playing time, but because they hated playing for coach L.
– The school has fielded many complaints (not just 1…but many) from players about Lonergan and claimed they “handled it”. Despite that, nothing changed.
– Coach L tried to turn the kids against AD Patrick Nero by claiming he requested practice tapes so he could masturbate while watching them. He also claims Nero was in a sexual relationship with a member of the team. All players who spoke about this said the comments had “no grounding in reality”.
From the sounds of it, Lonergan has just lost his mind. The article reads similar to when an old guy thinks the FBI is listening to his phone calls or Ashley Bynes when she thought her parents put a chip in her brain. He’s just off his rocker, and when that many players have logged complaints against him, it’s not something that will likely just go away. Once a story like this gets published, how many parents are going to want their kids to play for him? How will he even recruit at all?
Now obviously there are two sides to every story. Is this just another case of sensitive students who want to be babied? Are his words and actions being taken out of context and used against him to build a case? Is what he’s doing “tough coaching”, or is he being abusive?
The fact that there were many players who corroborated on the story is very telling, and probably means coach L is a ticking time bomb. We’ll see if this story has legs.