University Athletic Association Statement
Thursday, August 23, 2007 | Baseball
University of Florida Athletic Association Statement
It was not our intent to engage in this conversation in the newspaper or publicly as we realize it is a difficult situation when there are coaching changes and impending NCAA legislation that affects scholarship limits and roster sizes. However, we feel that this article in The Gainesville Sun on Wednesday, Aug. 22, was rife with errors and the misrepresentation of facts and the following is an attempt to clear up some issues.
Statement - "Bob Smith visited the Florida baseball offices in early July, hoping to discuss two items with new Gator coach Kevin O'Sullivan. The first was about a former player of his at Buchholz High School, and the second was to give O'Sullivan the names of a couple of the Bobcats' rising seniors he might want to take a look at."
This was not a scheduled meeting and occurred on Coach O'Sullivan's very first day in the office at Florida after a long recruiting trip, yet he obliged Bob Smith. The entire conversation revolved around Smith's son's situation. At no time during their conversation was Eric Thomas mentioned or any current players from Buchholz. While O'Sullivan did mistakenly call Smith by the name Bill instead of Bob when he first met him, that was an honest mistake which he apologizes for.
Statement - "Thomas had his scholarship rescinded to UF days before he was scheduled to come to campus"
Coach O'Sullivan outlined the possibility of Eric not seeing significant playing time at Florida to his parents and suggested perhaps looking at some other schools. Discussed how there were 44 players on the roster at the end of last year and described how the NCAA legislation taking effect on August 1, 2008, called for a maximum of 30 scholarship players and 35 members of the roster.
At no point was a scholarship taken away, as O'Sullivan had a number of conversations with the player and his parents over the phone and worked with Tim Touma, Thomas' coach at Daytona Beach Community College, to help him obtain a scholarship to Bethune-Cookman. There were even additional conversations between O'Sullivan and the Thomas family to make sure everything was OK with this decision and there has not been one phone call since expressing any problems with this situation.
Statement - "He told Eric he no longer had a scholarship and needed to move on and find another school," said Smith, who also heard the message. "He told Eric, 'You're not good enough to play here, and don't call us back because we're very busy.'
O'Sullivan never stated that Thomas' scholarship was being taken away and at no point was the player told not to return a phone call. In fact, O'Sullivan's message included his name and number and the player was encouraged to give him a call as soon as he could.
Statement - "said O'Sullivan began talking about how the Gators didn't need eight catchers"
O'Sullivan began discussing the current Gator roster by position, beginning with the catchers, to be followed by infielders, outfielders and pitchers. There is a catcher named Brett Smith on the team, which triggered Bob Smith to claim that O'Sullivan did not know his son, Bo. Before O'Sullivan could finish, the conversation became one-sided as Bob Smith was critical of not knowing his son. O'Sullivan recruited the state of Florida for many years while the recruiting coordinator at Clemson before taking his current job and is obviously familiar with the prep programs and its high school coaches.
Statement - "He looked me in the eye, shook my hand and said he would (call and meet with Bo)," quote from Bob Smith
When O'Sullivan shook his hand, he was told by Bob Smith specifically not to call his son. Despite O'Sullivan wanting to explain the situation in a conversation with Bo Smith, that was discouraged. Florida Athletics Director Jeremy Foley subsequently met with Bo Smith in his office.
Because Bo Smith was 16 hours away from graduation, the University Athletic Association offered to honor his scholarship amount for the upcoming year if his intention was to graduate from UF. In addition, there is no mention in the article how Coach O'Sullivan contacted Samford head coach Casey Dunn on behalf of Bo Smith to assist in a possible transfer if he desired.
To reiterate, a lot of this situation resulted from new NCAA requirements being put into place about scholarship limitations and roster reductions. We wish each player the best of luck in their collegiate careers.
