I submitted a public-records request back on March 22 for a copy of new UVA Basketball coach Ryan Odom’s contract, and a follow-up request on March 23 to get a copy of the contract for his top assistant, Griff Aldrich.
This morning, March 31, the University of Virginia FOIA office emailed to tell me that it’s going to need until April 9 to get back to me on those requests.
For copies of contracts.
This is Dean Smith dusting off the four corners.
Fulfilling this request would require somebody there accessing a PDF of two contracts just signed in the last few days and sending me an email.
I’m not asking for an exhaustive review of tens of thousands of emails and text messages for everything involving a long series of keywords between a large group of people.
Two contracts.
Signed in the last few days.
This kind of nonsense is par for the course for UVA, unfortunately.
This was done to me back in last summer, when I asked for copies of the contract extensions that Tony Bennett and Brian O’Connor had signed back on June 13.
I filed requests for copies of those extensions on June 13.
I finally got them on July 2.
ICYMI
The stark contrast to the UVA approach to public records is VCU.
I emailed the basketball SID there the morning of March 18 to get a copy of Odom’s VCU employment contract.
March 18 was a travel day for VCU Basketball, which was heading out to Denver for its first-round NCAA Tournament game on March 20.
The SID got back to me when the plane landed, told me he’d try to get me something right away, and literally a few minutes later, I had the contract.
ICYMI
Didn’t have to go through the FOIA process, didn’t have to wait weeks to get an answer.
If you wonder why I’m often a hostile witness when it comes to simple matters involving the University of Virginia and UVA Athletics, now you know.
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Chris Graham
