John Blanchette: Husky A.D. misses point with Redmon

In refusing to release Katelan Redmon from her letter-of-intent, University of Washington athletic director Todd Turner has taken cover behind the sandbag of not wanting to set a precedent.

And that precedent would be what, exactly?

Deferring to the best interests of a young athlete?

Putting administrative anal retentiveness in neutral?

Actually doing the right thing?

Dangerous territory in college athletics, to be sure. Much better to get the lawyers involved, embitter a teenager and make your institution appear even more self-important than it usually does.

Now that’s leadership.

If Katelan Redmon was at all hesitant about wanting out before, she certainly can’t be now.

Wait, that’s a stretch. When she made her college choice last fall, the Lewis and Clark High School senior didn’t base it on the quality of athletic department paper pushing. Nor, apparently, were the academic horizons of UW, her future teammates on the women’s basketball team or Seattle’s particular quality of life the tipping points. Mostly she bonded with June Daugherty, the coach, which often as not is how it happens in recruiting.

Problem was, as Redmon was warming up to Daugherty, Turner was cooling.

He had a doing-good program – in almost all respects – that he thought should be doing better. Declining attendance and a parade of in-state high school talent heading elsewhere suggested that the thrill had leaked out of Daugherty’s program. It wasn’t an unreasonable conclusion.

You know the rest. Daugherty was fired and happily scooped up by Washington State, which unexpectedly had an opening of its own a few weeks later. Turner hired Duke assistant Tia Jackson to put the fizz back into the bottle at UW. Jackson immediately moved to reaffirm the commitments of the recruiting class Daugherty had signed, and did with every player except Redmon.

Redmon asked for her release. Turner has declined. The Redmon family will appeal to the national letter-of-intent steering committee and hope for relief.

Turner might want to hope, too. If the appeal is denied, Redmon stands to lose a year’s eligibility if she doesn’t attend Washington, and all Turner stands to gain is the appearance of being spiteful.

Though he didn’t return a phone message to discuss the matter with us, Turner has made all the predictable arguments. That the player signs with the school, not the coach. That the letter is designed to protect both parties. That it must be administered consistently at the risk of athletes wanting to dissolve their agreements willy nilly.

Uh-huh. And it all misses the point, which is this:

Why, Todd, do you want a player who no longer wants you? And what is the point of exacting some pound of flesh from her for the trouble?

Because she might go play for the Cougs? Surely the Huskies can’t be that small.

Perhaps he could be reminded of the case of Carl Bonnell, the quarterback who led Washington to a victory in last year’s Apple Cup. Bonnell, of course, originally signed a letter of intent with the Cougars, but never practiced with the team while grayshirting. Then UW coach Rick Neuheisel pitched him a little woo and Bonnell decided to enroll there. Initially, the matter seemed destined for appeal with the steering committee when WSU coach Bill Doba decided, “I don’t want anybody who doesn’t want to be here.”

And, of course, Cougar signees have been wiggling out of their letters ever since.

Or not.

Yes, the letters are an agreement between school and student, not coach and student, but the mutual protection Turner has cited is not necessarily what he’d like it to be in this case. It’s not to protect the school from the dodgy recruit so much as from the unscrupulous coach who might jump to a higher-paying job and try to lure his or her recruits to come along.

And, yeah, Katelan Redmon might well wind up at Wazzu.

But Turner fired Daugherty. She didn’t sell herself to the highest bidder. She wouldn’t be showing off her new crimson sweats and humming the fight song if she hadn’t been excised from Turner’s payroll. Indeed, Turner even noted in doing so that Daugherty’s recruiting wasn’t to his satisfaction. Now one of those recruits wants to go elsewhere.

Make up your mind, big fella.

The fact is, there is no precedent to be set here, no slippery slope. All of Daugherty’s other recruits stuck with Jackson. The steering committee judges all appeals on their individual merits. There’s no one in Alabama, where this business gets done, keeping score.

But we are. First the Huskies pull the plug on their basketball series with Gonzaga, with Turner’s very public blessing. Now this with one of our heralded young athletes.

A city could get a complex.

On Monday, Turner comes to Spokane with several Husky coaches for a grip, grin and reach-for-your-checkbook affair at Manito Country Club. It would be nice if one of the generous donors from Spokane could fall out of lockstep long enough to ask the athletic director why he seems determined to put on an institutional face of arrogance, pettiness and, well, vindictiveness.

He wouldn’t want to set a precedent, would he?