Loading ...Bill Martin Allegedly Assaults Two DPS Staffers
Bill Martin will step down as athletic director on Sept. 4, 2010.
The football team is an embarrassment, the head coach is constantly under fire, the hockey team is a disappointment. What else could go wrong at Michigan?
Just before halftime, Turner was in charge of opening doors to let patrons out of the area when three males wearing University of Michigan polo shirts attempted to come through the doors, according to the report.
Turner told DPS she stepped in front of the doorway and told the man in the front of the group that she needed to see his pass to let him in. In response, the man, Martin, put his hand on her shoulder and said “Honey, I’m the athletic director,” pushing her just enough so she would get out of his way.
According to the report, Turner decided to report the incident after she heard fellow employees talking about a similar incident at the Oct. 17 game against Delaware State.
Arif Kahn, an Eastern Michigan student and DPS employee, told DPS he was assigned to work the south stairwell of the Regents Guest Area during the Delaware State game.
Shortly after the game ended, a man and woman, both elderly, tried to enter the area and walked past him “as if he wasn’t there,” according to the report. Kahn said he put his hand on the door and asked to see their passes. In response, the man “forcibly grabbed” Kahn’s windbreaker and pushed him slightly.
The man then said, “I am the athletic director, I can go in,” according to the report.
The first incident occurred at the Notre Dame game, at the second during the DSU game, so this isn’t exactly recent news. However, it is coming out now, and doesn’t reflect well on Martin or the University. He has apologized to the parties involved, and it appears there will not be any charges pressed. Martin had this to say on the matter:
“I have communicated with both employees to discuss the situation and express my regret,” Martin wrote. “They were just doing their jobs.”
…
“It was a frustrating situation, and one I should have handled differently,” Martin wrote in the statement.
No kidding. I have the utmost respect for Martin as an athletic director, but he really needs to carry himself better than that, regardless of the situation.
I can’t wait for basketball season to (officially) start. I’m getting sick of writing about how bad everything is at Michigan. This isn’t a huge deal, but certainly didn’t help matters. Here’s hoping the next AD knows how to properly deal with a simple security check-in.
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the article says they were both students. one for EMU and one for umich so to say they were DPS officers and that they were assaulted is hype-speak.
How, exactly, does them being students change anything? Here’s the headline from the Michigan Daily: “AD Bill Martin allegedly assaulted two DPS staffers at Notre Dame and Delaware State games.”
I’m not trying to “hype-speak” anything. At worst, I used “officers” where I should’ve used “staffers”. My bad.
I think the use of “assault” is a little much. Should he have made contact with either of them? No. Using the word assault conjures up images of Martin using a lead pipe to gain access to the room. Add it to the list of crap journalism.
Martin DID assault them. An assault can be expressed as any unwanted touching upon another. He did more than touch. he pushed. No matter how hard or lightly he DID push. Just another high paid chump that things he is better than everyone else.
Martin’s thug like conduct is a symptom of a bigger problem. He appears to be arrogant and incompetent. He will finish his career next year and that is unfortunate, because it should have been over two years ago for how he mis-handled the Les Miles negotiation and then rushed the Rodriguez decision. It appears that he has acted like an arrogant thug for a while and his legacy is the program itself. That legacy speaks volumes. Where has Coleman been in all this? Is she so spineless as to let this behavior and incompetence go on? Unfortunately universities are political cultures not performance cultures. All the PC people will not let her fail.
There is a great article in the Detroit News today about the next AD and what it means to Coleman.