Former local college coach gets canned a month into the job

Yesterday Hofstra University decided to part ways with former Providence College Head Coach Tim Welsh a month after they hired him, after he pleaded guilty following his arrest on suspicion of DWI in Long Island. In today’s athletic world, many coaches and athletes get in trouble with the law, but often times are not punished appropriately Athletic Director Jack Hayes, at Hofstra did a good job in making the move to force Welsh to resign from his position. This sets the tone by letting the Athletic community know that they are not going to tolerate any behavior like this from members of their athletic department. While Hofstra is a mid-major school, and they might not be as well known on the athletic field as a school like a Duke or a University of Texas, often times some of these smaller schools have higher ethics.
In 2009 University of Texas Baseball Coach Augie Garrido was only suspended four games after his DUI in Austin. Given that Texas is really the cream of the crop when it comes to college baseball, they had an opportunity to set a higher bar because their voice will carry further. But Welsh is not the first basketball coach to lose his job for suspected DUI. In 2004 former University Cincinnati Head Men’s Basketball Coach Bob Huggins was charged with DUI. A year later Cincinnati decided to part ways with the coach making him one of the first major college basketball coaches to lose their jobs due to drinking and driving.
Although I completely agree with Hofstra’s decision to part ways with Coach Welsh, I think that it would be taken differently if Welsh were at a big-name school because then the general public would take more notice. With Hofstra and Welsh parting ways because of these charges, whoever takes the Hofstra job will think about what happened at Hofstra with Coach Welsh before they put themselves or their careers in jeopardy.