The University of Virginia used FOIA exemptions to withhold, I’m guessing, quite a bit from its records of communications between UVA Basketball coach Ryan Odom, Carla Williams, the AD, and Wally Walker, the deputy AD, involving former basketball staffers Kyle Guy and Isaiah Wilkins.
“Under FOIA, the University of Virginia shall withhold records when their release is prohibited by law, or the University may exercise its discretion to withhold records in accordance with a specific FOIA exemption,” the FOIA office wrote back to me in its response email, dated April 30, so, yesterday.
“The University of Virginia applied redactions pursuant to the following exemptions: personnel information (Virginia Code § 2.2-3705.1(1)) and personal contact information (Va. Code Section 2.2-3705.1(10)).”
This kind of thing happens all the time when dealing with public-records requests.
The good stuff gets withheld, and it’s then on you to take the people on the other side to court – and the deck is stacked against you.
ICYMI
- Odom’s first flub as the UVA Basketball coach: Not retaining Kyle Guy
- UVA Basketball: Isaiah Wilkins, double-‘Hoo, not retained by Odom, moving on
I did get one email in the response, from the associate head coach, Griff Aldrich, that contained a couple of interesting nuggets.
One, per the email, addressed to Williams, and dated March 25, three days after Odom was hired, Aldrich indicated that Odom had been asked to adjust salaries for his staff to save money.
“After discussion and review, Coach Odom adjusted salaries to reach a savings of $60,000,” Aldrich wrote in the email to the AD.
Of note here: Odom’s staff is getting considerably less, line by line, vis-à-vis the staff of former head coach Tony Bennett, and from what we can read into Aldrich’s email to Williams, Williams was asking Odom to pinch a few more pennies with his hires.
ICYMI
Maybe they’re trying to save money on what they’re paying the staff to be able to put more money into compensation for the student-athletes/mercenaries.
I say we go with that, and not, we don’t have the money to spend on basketball that Williams crowed about at the press avail following the event held to introduce Odom as the new coach.
Two, Aldrich indicated that positions for Guy and Wilkins were not incorporated “into our calculations,” a point that was reinforced in a spreadsheet that he attached to the email detailing the hires that were in the works – Aldrich as the associate head coach, Matt Henry, Bryce Crawford and Darius Theus as full-time assistants, Kelsey Knoche as director of operations, Matt Hart as director of analytics, Billy Bales as video coordinator, Ahmad Thomas as director of recruiting, and Michael Crowder as director of culture/alumni engagement.
Guy and Wilkins were listed in the spreadsheet under “other staff considerations.”
Nobody over there is going to touch this with a 39-and-a-half-foot pole, but the narrative from the Odom camp that he’d offered jobs to Guy and Wilkins that they turned down to look for other opportunities isn’t supported here.
ICYMI
From this lone email from Aldrich that they slipped up and gave me access to, Guy and Wilkins weren’t in the plans, clearly.
Odom was asked to save money on his staff, had his right-hand man send Williams the list of people he intended to hire, with savings on what he was going to pay them, and the list didn’t include positions or money for Guy and Wilkins in the calculations.
What’s done is done, Guy and Wilkins both got jobs elsewhere, life goes on, but, the narrative that we were sold about the two being offered chances to stay is what some would call fake news.
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Chris Graham
