Tag: Chris Doyle

Jags Urban Meyer, Trent Baalke subpoenaed in Iowa Hawkeyes lawsuit for discrimination

Both Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer and general manager Trent Baalke were issued subpoenas for a lawsuit involving former Iowa Hawkeyes strength coach Chris Doyle. The subpoenas came from the U.S. District Court for the Southern …

Both Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer and general manager Trent Baalke were issued subpoenas for a lawsuit involving former Iowa Hawkeyes strength coach Chris Doyle. The subpoenas came from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, which is looking to collect information on Doyle’s hiring and resignation with the Jags in February.

The subpoenas come as the Iowa Hawkeyes are dealing with a $20 million racial discrimination civil lawsuit filed by the lawyers of multiple Black players. These players say that Doyle (and others) were behind racial incidents that led to a “racially hostile environment.”

As we previously reported when Doyle was hired, the decision to bring him on came with a lot of backlash. The team brought him in after he and Iowa’s football program were under investigation last summer. The results of the investigation revealed that multiple Black players felt they were victims of systematic racism and mistreatment during their time with the program.

As the news broke, the Jags issued a statement through their public relations department, stating that their brief employment of Doyle, which was in February, had nothing to do with the Iowa lawsuit. 

“We respect and will cooperate with the legal process as required,” the organization said in the statement. “However, the Jaguars have no information that would be relevant to the lawsuit between student-athletes and the University of Iowa.”

The Jags initially announced Doyle’s hiring with the rest of the staff on Feb. 10 and he resigned on the night of Feb. 12. Meyer and Baalke released a statement that said they should’ve put more consideration into the hiring as Doyle decided to turn in his resignation.

“Chris Doyle came to us this evening to submit his resignation and we have accepted. Chris did not want to be a distraction to what we are building in Jacksonville. We are responsible for all aspects of our program and, in retrospect, should have given greater consideration to how his appointment may have affected all involved.  We wish him the best as he moves forward in his career.”

According to documents obtained by the Florida Times-Union, the subpoena issued to the Jags organization, in care of Baalke, is for 19 requests in the form of documents and transmission, while Meyer’s subpoena is asking for 10. They were issued on June 4 and the deadline to provide evidence was July 9.

Podcast: Discussion on Jags temporarily hiring Chris Doyle, NFL Draft outlook

With another week of the Jacksonville Jaguars’ most important offseason passing by, another episode of “Bleav in the Jags” is now in the books. This week, Jags Wire contributor Phil Smith and myself started episode 59 off with the controversial …

With another week of the Jacksonville Jaguars’ most important offseason passing by, another episode of “Bleav in the Jags” is now in the books.

This week, Jags Wire contributor Phil Smith and myself started episode 59 off with the controversial topic that had many talking about the Jags: Chris Doyle’s brief hiring. With him stepping down last week, we discussed why the hiring never should’ve been made.

Afterward, we dove into the draft with the Draft Network’s Justin Melo. Among the topics he touched on were his analysis on Trevor Lawrence, the direction the Jags should go with pick No. 25, acquiring Orlando Brown, and more.

Episode 59 of “Bleav in the Jags” and the rest of our archived episodes can be heard below in the media player and links provided.

Click here for archived episodes of Bleav in the Jags and feel free to subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify.

The Jaguars have parted ways with Chris Doyle, but the damage is already done

Doyle should never have gotten this opportunity in the first place.

The Jacksonville Jaguars announced that they accepted assistant coach Chris Doyle’s resignation from the team on Friday.

On Thursday, just a day before, Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer made a slew of hires for his assistant coaching staff. Doyle was one of those hires. And, a day later, he’s resigning.

The team announced his resignation late on Friday night in typical news-dump fashion at 11:17 p.m. ET. ESPN’s Adam Schefter broke the news via Twitter. The Jaguars sent him a team statement.

The statement said Doyle didn’t want to be “a distraction to what we are building in Jacksonville.”

This all stems from Doyle’s past. Before he was an assistant in Jacksonville, he was the strength coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes from 1999 to 2020 when he was fired in June after a swath of former players accused him of racism, bullying and mistreatment.

There was a groundswell of backlash from the hire, of course, with everyone knowing Doyle’s past. Particularly from Rod Graves, the executive director of the Fritz Pollard alliance who made a great point about the NFL’s racial hiring practices.

Nonetheless, Urban Meyer — the perfect moral arbiter — assured everyone that he vetted his friend of 20 years and that he was a good guy. No worries! Everything is fine.

Now, a day later, he’s out. And the Jaguars claim he didn’t want to be a “distraction” which, somehow, made things worse.

This wasn’t the Jaguars firing Doyle. This wasn’t Meyer and the organization separating themselves from a problematic coach. Nope. Instead, this it’s being couched as avoiding a “distraction.” It’s being painted as Doyle making a decision to remove himself from the organization for the betterment of the team as if he was done some sort of wrong.

And that’s just wild in all sorts of ways. Not only was the organization willing to hire Doyle, but they also briefly backed him in the face of all this. And they let him be part of the decision to walk away.

This just goes to show us that, yes, Urban Meyer is a joke just as my colleague Andy Nesbitt wrote. And the NFL’s anti-racism campaign is toothless as my colleague Chris Korman wrote.

It’s clear that Urban Meyer hasn’t learned from his mistakes at all. He still believes he has the run of the land as he did in Ohio State, and that just doesn’t work in the NFL. Every decision is way more scrutinized. And they come with backlash.

It really boils down to this. Coaches like Eric Bieniemy can’t even get a look for a head coaching gig after running the offense for a team that has made two straight Super Bowls. Yet, Doyle so easily got an assistant job after being disgraced at Iowa and accomplishing absolutely nothing.

The truth is, Doyle should never have gotten this opportunity in the first place. But he did. And he was able to step away from it with ease. And he’ll probably get another one down the line, too, because that just seems to be how this thing works.

Doyle and the Jaguars may have parted ways, but it doesn’t matter. The damage has already been done.

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Chris Doyle submits resignation papers, won’t be with Jags

A day after his controversial hiring, Jags assistant Chris Doyle has put in his resignation papers.

A day after announcing his hiring, Chris Doyle has turned in his resignation papers to the Jacksonville Jaguars and the team has accepted. As a result, the status of their director of sports performance role is now vacant if the team wishes to keep it.

Coach Urban Meyer released the following statement Friday night stating that Doyle didn’t want to be a distraction and that his hiring was one the organization wishes they considered a little more heavily for everyone involved.

Chris Doyle came to us this evening to submit his resignation and we have accepted. Chris did not want to be a distraction to what we are building in Jacksonville. We are responsible for all aspects of our program and, in retrospect, should have given greater consideration to how his appointment may have affected all involved.  We wish him the best as he moves forward in his career.

Doyle’s hiring came with a lot of backlash as he was about eight months removed from leaving Iowa University, where he was a strength and conditioning coach, last June due to allegations of bullying and racism. However, after the announcement of Doyle’s return to football, it was clear many in the football community questioned the decision.

Hours later Meyer was asked about the hiring and said he “vetted” Doyle thoroughly alongside general manager Trent Baalke and owner Shad Khan.  

“I’ve known Chris for close to 20 years,” Meyer said Thursday via Zoom. “Our relationship goes back to when I was at Utah and he was the No. 1 strength coach. I vetted him thoroughly along with our general manager and owner. I feel great about the hire, about his expertise at that position. We vetted him thoroughly, and sports performance is going to be a high, high priority.”

Late Friday afternoon, The Fritz Pollard Alliance joined the mix of several voices to question the Jags’ decision and pointed out that it was a “failure in leadership”. The organization’s director,  Rod Graves, also called the move unacceptable in a statement.

“At a time when the NFL has failed to solve its problem with racial hiring practices, it is simply unacceptable to welcome Chris Doyle into the ranks of NFL coaches,” Graves said Friday afternoon. “Doyle’s departure from the University of Iowa reflected a tenure riddled with poor judgment and mistreatment of Black players. His conduct should be as disqualifying for the NFL as it was for the University of Iowa. Urban Meyer’s statement, ‘I’ve known Chris for close to 20 years,’ reflects the good ol’ boy network that is precisely the reason there is such a disparity in employment opportunities for Black coaches.”

According to reports, the allegations against Doyle resulted in an investigation at Iowa last summer. The results revealed that various Black players felt they were victims of systematic racism and mistreatment during their time with the program.

“In sum, the program’s rules perpetuated racial or cultural biases and diminished the value of cultural diversity,” the report states. “The program over-monitored players to the point that they experienced heightened anxiety and maintained a culture that allowed a small group of coaches to demean players.”

Multiple players took to social media to call Doyle and Iowa’s program out around the time of his investigation. In early June, he was placed on administrative leave while the investigation resumed. Eventually, both sides decided to mutually part ways and reached a settlement worth $1.1 million. The settlement also included no admission of wrongdoing.

Chris Doyle submits resignation to Jacksonville Jaguars

A day after his hiring caused a major storm, former Iowa strength and conditioning coach Chris Doyle has resigned from the Jacksonville Jaguars

Talk about a turnabout. A day after Urban Meyer caused a massive stir by hiring Chris Doyle, the controversial former Iowa strength and conditioning coach turned in his resignation to the Jacksonville Jaguars on Friday.

The decision to hire Doyle as the Jaguars’ director of sports performance was completely panned. Doyle parted company with Iowa over the summer amid controversy over his treatment of Black athletes in the Hawkeye program during his 16 years with the school.

The head of the Fritz Pollard Alliance blasted the hiring earlier in the day.

“At a time when the NFL has failed to solve its problem with racial hiring practices, it is simply unacceptable to welcome Chris Doyle into the ranks of NFL coaches,” Rod Graves’ said in a statement. “Doyle’s departure from the University of Iowa reflected a tenure riddled with poor judgment and mistreatment of Black players. His conduct should be as disqualifying for the NFL as it was for University of Iowa.

“Urban Meyer’s statement, ‘I’ve known Chris for close to 20 years’ reflects the good ol’ boy network that is precisely the reason there is such a disparity in employment opportunities for Black coaches.”

On Thursday, Meyer justified Doyle’s hiring saying, “I vet everyone on our staff and like I said the relationship goes back close to 20 years and a lot of hard questions asked, a lot of vetting involved with all our staff,” Meyer said. “We did a very good job vetting that one.

“… I met with our staff and I’m going to be very transparent with all the players like I am with everything. I’ll listen closely and learn and also there’s going to have to be some trust in their head coach that we’re going to give them the very best of the best and time will tell. … The allegations that took place, I will say [Notes:to the players] I vetted him. I know the person for close to 20 years and I can assure them there will be nothing of any sort in the Jaguar facility.”

Doyle’s resignation will not erase the questionable decision Meyer made in making the hire before he coached a single NFL game.

Fritz Pollard Alliance head slams Jaguars’ hiring of Chris Doyle

Urban Meyer has been put on blast by the head of the Fritz Pollard Alliance for his hiring or controversial former Iowa strength coach Chris Doyle

Urban Meyer has yet to coach a game for the Jacksonville Jaguars and he already has stirred controversy.

The Jaguars’ head coach announced the hiring of former Iowa strength and conditioning coach Chris Doyle on Thursday. The same Chris Doyle who lost his longstanding job with the Hawkeyes when he and the school reached a separation agreement in the summer after numerous former players spoke out about mistreatment within the Iowa program.

A number of the allegations came from Black players concerned with the way Doyle treated them and his use of racist language. Doyle was the nation’s highest-paid strength coach at $800,000 annually. He received 15 months’ salary (roughly $1.1 million), and he and his family were awarded benefits from Iowa for 15 months,

Rod Graves of the Fritz Pollard Alliance skewered Meyer and the NFL in a statement released Friday. The Fritz Pollard Alliance exists to champion diversity in the NFL through education and providing its members with resources that will help them succeed at every level of the game, per its mission statement

Meyer defending his hiring — of course — saying Thursday, “I vet everyone on our staff and like I said, the relationship goes back close to 20 years and a lot of hard questions asked, a lot of vetting involved with all our staff. We did a very good job vetting that one.

“… I met with our staff and I’m going to be very transparent with all the players like I am with everything. I’ll listen closely and learn, and also there’s going to have to be some trust in their head coach that we’re going to give them the very best of the best, and time will tell. … The allegations that took place, I will say [to the players] I vetted him. I know the person for close to 20 years and I can assure them there will be nothing of any sort in the Jaguar facility.”

 

Urban Meyer discusses controversial decision to name Chris Doyle to Jags’ staff

Urban Meyer’s staff with the Jacksonville Jaguars has already me with controversy as he’s bring aboard former Iowa coach Chris Doyle.

After weeks of anticipation by Jacksonville Jaguars fans, new head coach Urban Meyer made his staff official Thursday. However, not unlike his past staffs, this one will come with some controversy.

Among those named to Meyer’s staff was former University of Iowa strength and conditioning coach Chris Doyle, who left the Hawkeyes program last June due to allegations of bullying and racism. Now, almost eight months later, he’s received an opportunity as the Jags’ director of sport performance.

Once the Jags made their staff announcements official via social media, it didn’t take long for reporters to point out Doyle’s past. With an official presser introducing several assistants following the announcement, the media didn’t waste any time asking about Doyle’s hiring.

In a nutshell, Meyer insists the hire was thoroughly discussed with general manager Trent Baalke and owner Shad Khan.

“I’ve known Chris for close to 20 years,” Meyer said Thursday via Zoom. “Our relationship goes back to when I was at Utah and he was the No. 1 strength coach. I vetted him thoroughly along with our general manager and owner. I feel great about the hire, about his expertise at that position. We vetted him thoroughly, and sports performance is going to be a high, high priority.”

The allegations against Doyle resulted in an investigation at Iowa last summer. The results revealed that various Black players felt they were victims of systematic racism and mistreatment during their time with the program.

“In sum, the program’s rules perpetuated racial or cultural biases and diminished the value of cultural diversity,” the report states. “The program over-monitored players to the point that they experienced heightened anxiety and maintained a culture that allowed a small group of coaches to demean players.”

The report was a result of multiple players calling out Doyle for racism. Eventually, on June 6, Doyle was placed on administrative leave as the investigation continued, but eventually he reached an agreement to part ways with the program. That agreement included a settlement worth just over $1 million and also included no admission of wrongdoing.

Doyle also disputed the accusations against him in the following statement:

“I have been asked to remain silent, but that is impossible for me to do. There have been statements made about my behavior that are not true,” Doyle said. “I do not claim to be perfect. I have made mistakes, learned lessons, and like every American citizen, can do better. At no time have I ever crossed the line of unethical behavior or bias based upon race. I do not make racist comments, and I don’t tolerate people who do.”

Before the hiring of Meyer, some observers expressed concerns over controversies during his time at Ohio State and Florida. A key reason for those concerns is the fact that the Jags were coming out of a situation where Tom Coughlin was a known enemy of the NFLPA.

Now, the Jags might be trending in a similar direction, and Doyle’s hiring could provide some hurdles, as players such as Chris Conley have already taken note. Free agency, which begins in March, could be the first big test of how the decision will be viewed. That said, for a coach who is trying to win right away, Doyle’s addition is a puzzling hire, but only time will tell if it hinders Meyer’s success as a first-year head coach.

Urban Meyer shows how toothless NFL’s anti-racism campaign is by hiring disgraced strength coach

Chris Doyle left Iowa amid accusations of bullying Black players.

It was easy to poke fun at the NFL’s initiative this year that allowed for the words “End Racism” to appear near the end zone, or on the back of a players’ helmet. Slogans tend to have little impact on deeply engrained systemic inequality that is both overtly and subtly upheld by those it benefits.

Now it’s clear that those were just words, as much meant to deflect the conversation as they were to change any minds.

With one hire by a coach who is new to the league, any goodwill those symbolic gestures might have created should be tossed with the force of a Patrick Mahomes pass into the deepest ocean.

Urban Meyer, new head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, has hired Chris Doyle, a strength coach who lost his job at Iowa because a large group of former players, most of them Black, accused him of mistreating and bullying players — particularly the Black ones.

They accused him, in other words, of being outright and openly racist. And now he is employed in the NFL.

Doyle was also embroiled in other controversy at Iowa, when players were worked so hard they ended up being hospitalized.

Meyer, of course, will try to claim that Doyle has earned his next chance, but at this point he has no credibility. And his players know it:

It’s so easy to see through Meyer at this point; there are hundreds of quote tweets correcting this Jaguars propaganda. A small sampling:

That last one, of course, is a reference to Meyer hiring Zach Smith at Ohio State, even though Smith had been arrested on suspicion of domestic violence while the two worked together at Florida. Meyer then somehow failed to supervise Smith by not dealing with further allegations of domestic violence, leading to Smith’s firing and Meyer being suspended the first three games of the 2018 season.

Meyer handled that ordeal horrifically, including flat out lying about it at Big Ten Media Day. As he tried to salvage his reputation and career at Ohio State, he decided to Coach Mumble his way through a bunch of cliches meant to make him sound sincere, but kept making it worse. Even when what he needed to do was simply apologize to the woman his negligence imperiled, he failed.

This is just who Urban Meyer is. He knows he has to seem contrite and try to say the right thing so it might appear as though he does care, but he does not care. Because he also knows that he has won enough football games that the rest of this stuff doesn’t really matter.

The Jaguars proved as much by hiring him, despite so many red flags.

And now, as if we might have forgotten who Meyer really is, Meyer goes and hires the single most controversial strength coach he could find. This is particularly galling because Meyer sure seems like he was picked to be the next Jaguars coach before the team even pretended to abide by the Rooney Rule.

(Before you accuse me of partaking in cancel culture, let me be clear and say: Yes, I think Chris Doyle should be cancelled. Instead he walked away with a million dollars from Iowa and now works in the NFL.)

The only solace in all of this is that Doyle is no longer dealing with powerless college students who have no leverage. NFL players have real power. They have a union protecting their interests.  They’re grown men, most of them presumably earning more than Doyle.

Doyle — and Meyer, for that matter — will have to actually earn the respect of those players by showing they are proficient at their jobs, not because they operate in a system where they’ve been given total power.

And it seems quite possible that a man who has had to resort to bullying will quickly find himself at a loss in a situation like that.

The glaring problem with Urban Meyer reportedly expecting to land the Jaguars’ job

Iowa parts ways with strength coach Chris Doyle

Strength and conditioning coach Chris Doyle has parted ways with Iowa in the face of allegations of racially biased behavior.

The University of Iowa football program has parted ways with Chris Doyle after widespread accusations that the longtime strength coach used his position to bully and disparage former players, particularly those who are African-American.

The school made the announcement Monday. As part of the separation agreement Doyle, the nation’s highest-paid strength coach at $800,000 annually, will receive 15 months’ salary, which equates to two payments of $556,249.50,  one on Aug. 1, the other on Jan. 1, 2021  He is prohibited from seeking employment at Iowa or holding strength and conditioning camps at the university.

Doyle, 51, had been placed on administrative leave by the university June 6.

Doyle had led Iowa’s strength and conditioning program since 1999. He was placed on paid administrative leave June 6 after a large group of former players had spoken out about mistreatment in the program. Most of the allegations came from black players and centered on Doyle.

“Iowa City has been home to our family for 21 years,” Doyle said via a prepared statement. “I am grateful Iowa football provided an opportunity to work with incredible players, coaches, and support staff. I have worked diligently to make a positive impact on the lives of student-athletes, support them as they speak out, and look forward to continued growth. I am confident that my record and character will be confirmed in the course of the independent review. The university and I have reached an agreement and it is time to move on from Iowa football. My family and I are looking forward to the next chapter.”

Raimond Braithwaite, in his 16th season with Iowa’s strength and conditioning program, has taken over on an interim basis.

 

 

 

Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz suspends coach after ex-players speak about racial inequity

The Iowa football program has suspended strength coach Chris Doyle after former players reveal racial inequities.

While the NFL is trying to figure out how to deal with a rapidly increasing activism among its player population, that issue is not limited to professional football. In college football, where the players do not have as many rights and often are not allowed to speak on social media, it took the words of several former Iowa Hawkeyes football players to activate change in the program.

After the death of George Floyd, Iowa head football coach Kirk Ferentz put out a statement that specified the need for his players to come to a uniform conclusion as to whether they would kneel for the national anthem before games in protest of police brutality.

“We want them to be uniform, whether it is their uniform, or the way they do things, the way they conduct themselves,” Ferentz said. “To me, there’s a certain game-day protocol, if you will. In conjunction with that, I’ve always kind of felt like the sports arena is not a time to shine a light on an individual cause or an individual thing. No matter what the topic might be, that’s kind of been my approach.

“As we move forward right now, I think it’s important that we’re all together. But, whether it’s appropriate or not in a sports venue, that’s a discussion to be had. And certainly when we come back, we’ll talk about that as a team as well. I guess if I were to frame it out, I guess my goal, or my hopes, as a coach, is whatever we decide to do, and if it’s pertaining to that particular thing, I would just like to see our team to be together. Everybody’s taking a knee, or everybody’s at attention. Either way. The big thing is to be together, to me, on game day and present a uniform appearance as a football team.”

Ferentz could have not have imagined the storm that statement would cause. Soon after, several former Iowa players spoke about the racial inequities they encountered — a process that led to the suspension with pay of Iowa strength and concitioning coach Chris Doyle — the highest-paid coach at his position in the NCAA.

Bears offensive lineman James Daniels:

Vikings defensive tackle Jaleel Johnson:

Safety Jordan Lomax:

Titans safety Amani Hooker:

Lions defensive tackle Mike Daniels:

Illinois State linebacker Aaron Mends, a transfer from Iowa:

“Over the past 24 hours I have seen some difficult and heartbreaking posts on social media,” Ferentz said in a statement. “I appreciate the former players’ candor and have been reaching out to many of them individually to hear more about their experiences in our program. I am planning on talking to all of them in the coming days. This is a process that will take some time, but change begins by listening first.

“Many of the discussions have centered around our strength and conditioning program and coach Chris Doyle. I have spoken with him about the allegations posted on social media. They’re troubling and have created a lasting impact on those players. Therefore, Coach Doyle has been placed on administrative leave immediately while an independent review can take place. He and I agree that all parties will have their voices heard and then a decision about how we move forward will be made.”

If there’s one thing that has become evident in the last week or so, it’s that athletes at all levels are far bolder about speaking out about their own rights, and the responsibilities of those who are supposed to be coaching and mentoring them. This is a crucial dynamic in professional sports, but even more so at the college level — where players are not paid, have very few opportunities to speak out, and, as in the case of Iowa’s players, didn’t even have the right to speak their minds on social media.

And for those who have moved to limit those rights, to intimidate players in their charge, and to otherwise abuse the privilege they’re afforded and the responsibilities they’ve been given, it could be a very tough time. As it should be.