Ohio’s swimming and diving team finished Mid-American Conference competition on March 2 with its worst standing since 1981. The season’s results reminded several of our readers — whose letters you’ll find on this page today — of the sudden and mysterious dismissal of former head coach Greg Werner in October.
The only justification for the firing came from Athletics Director Jim Schaus, who said in a statement that the department had decided to take the team in a “different direction.”
Athletics has repeatedly declined to further explain Werner’s termination. The department provided The Post with Werner’s personnel file, but the sections about his termination had been blacked out. The Post is allowed to speak to the swimmers and divers about nearly any topic, but not about Werner’s departure.
The alumni who reached out to us have taken to guessing what might have been behind the firing. Two letter writers suggest that Werner was fired because Athletics caved to student-athlete complaints that practices were too hard and the coach was too demanding.
Another writer suggests that perhaps Athletics is planning to cut the swimming and diving program entirely and wanted to push out the man who would be the department’s biggest opponent to doing so.
Are these ideas way off base or right on the money? We have no way of knowing, but we think alumni know the program better than many, and we value their insights. If anyone else has any theories about why Werner might have been fired, we’d love to hear and print them. Until the university gives us an actual explanation, all we can print is conjecture.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of The Post’s executive editors.
