05-26-2005, 09:38 PM
'Small town' hit hard
Fresno is a city of 480,000 in the heart of California's San Joaquin Valley with no major league sports. Fresno State athletics are viewed as the only sports show in town.
University President John Welty, who has held his position since 1991, has hired two highly regarded men to help the healing: athletics director Tom Boeh (pronounced Bay) from Ohio University and men's basketball coach Steve Cleveland, a Fresno native, from Brigham Young University.
Both men have answered many questions recently about why they chose to enter the Fresno fray.
"It's obvious to everybody that there are a lot of problems," says Boeh, who begins July 1. "But I think the potential at Fresno State is staggering. For me, the challenge was part of the attraction."
Why, in his opinion, does trouble keep visiting Fresno State?
"You wonder," he says, "if folks (who cause trouble) find Fresno State, or does Fresno State find people who cause trouble?"
Nobody suspected trouble when Johnson-Klein and Lopes were hired in 2002.
"They were both great hires at the time," Johnson says.
Johnson-Klein had been a head coach at Division II Cameron in Lawton, Okla., for three years (23-57) and spent two seasons as an assistant at Louisiana Tech before coming to Fresno State. She took over a team that won nine games in 2001-02, and she went 21-13, including two wins in the Women's National Invitation Tournament.
Moreover, she created something of a sensation with her glamorous looks, long blond hair and flashy outfits.
Attendance boomed. In her second season, the first in the new arena, Save Mart Center, average attendance rose 3,033 a game to 4,495 — 19th nationally.
"The way she presented herself, a lot of men wanted to go just to see her, to watch her," booster Soligian says. "She sold a lot of tickets."
Her team that second season, though, posted just a 13-16 record.
Last season turned into a bitter soap opera.
The university suspended Johnson-Klein on Feb. 9 after a series of run-ins with athletics department staffers and complaints about her behavior from players and assistant coaches. A three-week investigation followed, culminating in her firing March 2.
Welty accused Johnson-Klein, 35, of repeatedly and inappropriately obtaining prescription pain relievers from players and staff members, financial improprieties, insubordination to athletics department staffers and a secondary NCAA violation, allowing a player's parent to stay in a university-paid hotel room.
He also said the players had come to fear Johnson-Klein and no longer respected her.
"The coach was acting in a manner wholly inconsistent with her responsibility to serve as a positive role model for students," Welty said in announcing Johnson-Klein's firing. Welty declined to be interviewed for this story.
Three weeks ago, the university released the full, 380-page report of its investigation, which includes one player saying that as many as 14 of the team's 15 players would have left the program if Johnson-Klein returned.
Lead assistant coach Adrian Wiggins, 31, named interim coach through next season, confirms that.
"No, I don't think they would have stayed with her," Wiggins says.
He wouldn't have, either. "I just wasn't real thrilled with the direction we were heading."
Johnson-Klein's attorney, Warren Paboojian, says the former coach will sue the university, probably in late June, for gender discrimination and sexual harassment. He says the university retaliated against her because of her complaints that the men's team got things, such as a certified trainer, that the women's team didn't.
Johnson-Klein, through her attorney, declined to be interviewed.
Desiree Reed-Francois, an associate athletics director and an attorney, says, "I feel very confident in the decisions made by the university. It made them for the right reasons, and it made them in the interests of the student-athletes."
Of the entire Johnson-Klein episode, Reed-Francois says, "Bizarre would be a fair characterization."
<a href='http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/2005-05-26-fresno-state-cover_x.htm' target='_blank'>Totally Thomas</a>
Fresno is a city of 480,000 in the heart of California's San Joaquin Valley with no major league sports. Fresno State athletics are viewed as the only sports show in town.
University President John Welty, who has held his position since 1991, has hired two highly regarded men to help the healing: athletics director Tom Boeh (pronounced Bay) from Ohio University and men's basketball coach Steve Cleveland, a Fresno native, from Brigham Young University.
Both men have answered many questions recently about why they chose to enter the Fresno fray.
"It's obvious to everybody that there are a lot of problems," says Boeh, who begins July 1. "But I think the potential at Fresno State is staggering. For me, the challenge was part of the attraction."
Why, in his opinion, does trouble keep visiting Fresno State?
"You wonder," he says, "if folks (who cause trouble) find Fresno State, or does Fresno State find people who cause trouble?"
Nobody suspected trouble when Johnson-Klein and Lopes were hired in 2002.
"They were both great hires at the time," Johnson says.
Johnson-Klein had been a head coach at Division II Cameron in Lawton, Okla., for three years (23-57) and spent two seasons as an assistant at Louisiana Tech before coming to Fresno State. She took over a team that won nine games in 2001-02, and she went 21-13, including two wins in the Women's National Invitation Tournament.
Moreover, she created something of a sensation with her glamorous looks, long blond hair and flashy outfits.
Attendance boomed. In her second season, the first in the new arena, Save Mart Center, average attendance rose 3,033 a game to 4,495 — 19th nationally.
"The way she presented herself, a lot of men wanted to go just to see her, to watch her," booster Soligian says. "She sold a lot of tickets."
Her team that second season, though, posted just a 13-16 record.
Last season turned into a bitter soap opera.
The university suspended Johnson-Klein on Feb. 9 after a series of run-ins with athletics department staffers and complaints about her behavior from players and assistant coaches. A three-week investigation followed, culminating in her firing March 2.
Welty accused Johnson-Klein, 35, of repeatedly and inappropriately obtaining prescription pain relievers from players and staff members, financial improprieties, insubordination to athletics department staffers and a secondary NCAA violation, allowing a player's parent to stay in a university-paid hotel room.
He also said the players had come to fear Johnson-Klein and no longer respected her.
"The coach was acting in a manner wholly inconsistent with her responsibility to serve as a positive role model for students," Welty said in announcing Johnson-Klein's firing. Welty declined to be interviewed for this story.
Three weeks ago, the university released the full, 380-page report of its investigation, which includes one player saying that as many as 14 of the team's 15 players would have left the program if Johnson-Klein returned.
Lead assistant coach Adrian Wiggins, 31, named interim coach through next season, confirms that.
"No, I don't think they would have stayed with her," Wiggins says.
He wouldn't have, either. "I just wasn't real thrilled with the direction we were heading."
Johnson-Klein's attorney, Warren Paboojian, says the former coach will sue the university, probably in late June, for gender discrimination and sexual harassment. He says the university retaliated against her because of her complaints that the men's team got things, such as a certified trainer, that the women's team didn't.
Johnson-Klein, through her attorney, declined to be interviewed.
Desiree Reed-Francois, an associate athletics director and an attorney, says, "I feel very confident in the decisions made by the university. It made them for the right reasons, and it made them in the interests of the student-athletes."
Of the entire Johnson-Klein episode, Reed-Francois says, "Bizarre would be a fair characterization."
<a href='http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/2005-05-26-fresno-state-cover_x.htm' target='_blank'>Totally Thomas</a>