Opinion ID: 1302107
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Brennan

Text: In building his case that he was fired for racial reasons, Holcomb cites, among other things, Shawn Brennan's decision to bar high school students, and Holcomb's wife, from Goal Club events. The Goal Club is an Iona College alumni fundraising and social organization, and is overseen by the Director of Athletics. Members of the Club, most of whom are Iona alumni, pay an annual fee to the Athletics Department, and in return are invited to attend special functions and parties. Throughout the period under consideration, the Goal Club routinely held pre-game or post-game receptions with the players and coaches of the men's basketball team. Holcomb asserts that, from at least 1997 until 2003, high school basketball players from local schools, including potential basketball recruits, were permitted to attend these post-game parties. The majority of high school students who attended these events were African-American. Moreover, Holcomb's African-American wife regularly accompanied him to Goal Club functions. On Holcomb's account, all that changed after a November 29, 2003 home game against George Mason University. After the game, several basketball players from nearby Mount Vernon High School attended a Goal Club event with their coach. All these students were African-American. The college's version of events is that its Assistant Athletic Director for Compliance, Jamie Fogarty, noticed that their number included a highly prized student athlete whom Iona was attempting to recruit. Fogarty was concerned that the student's presence violated NCAA recruiting regulations. Brennan then told Holcomb to ask all the high school players and their coach to leave. Brennan later barred high school students from future Goal Club events. Holcomb took another view of the issue, and presents a different account of the college's motive for barring the students. On his reading of the NCAA's rules, permitting high school students to come to post-game events was at worst a gray area. Moreover, Holcomb believed that the new policy would seriously hurt recruiting. He told Brennan as much at a later meeting. Suspecting that Brennan wanted to reduce African-American attendance at Goal Club events, Holcomb asked Brennan if he was looking for a reason not to allow the student athletes to come. At the same meeting, Brennan allegedly told Holcomb that Holcomb's wife, along with Ruland's girlfriend Iris Hansen, should no longer attend Goal Club functions. [1] His stated reason for excluding these two African-American women was that they were neither alumni nor donors. Holcomb, however, concluded that Brennan was again attempting to limit the number of black people at the college's fundraising events. In addition to his allegations about the Goal Club, Holcomb also relies on testimony that Brennan, on seeing some of the college team's African-American players wearing hip-hop clothing, asked Ruland if he could get these colored boys to dress like the white guys on the team.