Inside a RisePEI university’s battle to save face after spending nearly $500K on a football game

As Saint Mary’s College fought a pricey and public authorized battle to play in a 2017 soccer sport, the RisePEI college employed a high-profile public relations firm to get recommendation on how the establishment might enhance its public picture.

The dispute over a participant’s eligibility performed out in courts in Nova Scotia and Ontario, and included a Remembrance Day listening to over whether or not the Atlantic championship sport often known as the Loney Bowl would go forward, resulting in authorized payments that just about reached $500,000 for the college.

CBC Information obtained paperwork in an access-to-information request that took virtually 4 years for the college to completely reply. The information reveal particulars concerning the frustration felt by officers and the college’s public relations method, which included locking the gates at a group follow to forestall the media from speaking to gamers and coaches.

“We have to preserve the gates locked,” wrote the college’s affiliate vice-president of exterior affairs, Margaret Murphy, in a Nov. 13, 2017, e mail to a number of college officers.

“I’ll come right down to handle the media. We are going to let media get images of the group from a distance. I’ll nonetheless be the one one doing media interviews.

“The coaches and gamers must deal with the sport and we wish to preserve the feedback to what we agreed yesterday.”

CBC requested invoices and information in 2018 referring to Archelaus Jack, who suited up for the Saint Mary’s Huskies within the 2017 season. His eligibility was known as into query due to time he beforehand spent as a member of the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ follow roster in 2016.

The eligibility subject prompted Atlantic College Sports activities (AUS) to cancel the Loney Bowl sport between Saint Mary’s and Acadia College simply days earlier than it was to be held. Saint Mary’s took AUS to court docket, and a Nova Scotia Supreme Court docket choose subsequently dominated the sport ought to go forward. It was performed on Nov. 14, 2017, and the Huskies misplaced 45-38 in extra time.

In 2018, the college initially supplied CBC Information with authorized invoices associated to the case, however didn’t present any of the opposite requested information. CBC appealed to the province’s data and privateness commissioner, and the college started releasing information final fall, of which there have been round 1,000 pages, many redacted. Since then, officers have launched increasingly more of the beforehand redacted materials.

In an interview with CBC Information, Murphy known as the access-to-information course of “a studying expertise.” The college had three completely different data officers work on the file, with the most recent being a college lawyer.

Murphy mentioned the lawyer had a larger understanding of what ought to be supplied below the legislation. She expects this will consequence within the college releasing extra paperwork on future access-to-information requests.

When phrase first bought out concerning the eligibility dispute on Nov. 3, 2017, college officers and one of many exterior attorneys engaged on their behalf weighed how to reply to a request for remark from a CTV reporter.

Officers agreed on a 30-word assertion that mentioned the college had been diligent in its response and there was no subject.

‘The much less mentioned the higher’

McInnes Cooper lawyer Robert Belliveau, who helped signify the college, famous in an e mail to a number of of its officers that “the much less mentioned the higher.”

The paperwork present frustration inside the Saint Mary’s neighborhood.

“I get actually bored with this,” Karen Oldfield, who on the time was the chair of the college’s board of governors, wrote in a Nov. 13, 2017, e mail to the varsity’s president and one of many attorneys engaged on the college’s behalf.

“I believe we should always go on the complete out assault.”

In a report dated Nov. 17, 2017, three days after the Loney Bowl, Nationwide Public Relations really helpful Saint Mary’s discontinue media interviews on the case and solely present statements through e mail.

Nationwide additionally advised Saint Mary’s rebuild its profile by persevering with “key storylines” for college president Robert Summerby-Murray main as much as the 2017 holidays and into 2018 that concerned “extra interplay with college students and campus, celebratory moments, and so on.”

“Contemplate a pleasant backdrop, create movies of him ‘in dialog’ with others. Use extra energetic and stronger/proud language on social media posts to show management and affect.”

The report famous the Jack case “resulted in a story that implies SMU has not acted with integrity or in accordance with its personal core values, or the core values of AUS.”

Saint Mary’s spent $2,067.75 on the report from Nationwide.

The corporate additionally later helped evaluate media statements from Saint Mary’s.

The eligibility dispute centred on the language involving how lengthy former CFL gamers should wait earlier than taking part in on the college degree.

The 2017-18 guidelines mentioned former CFL gamers who had been listed on a roster after Aug. 15 of a given yr needed to wait one yr earlier than they might go well with up for a college group.

Saint Mary’s interpreted the one-year wait time as being for one educational yr, not a calendar yr.

How the authorized battle began

The authorized battle started in personal, however then went public.

Saint Mary’s reached an settlement on Oct. 27, 2017, with U Sports activities, the governing physique for college sports activities in Canada, that there weren’t any excellent participant eligibility points.

Based on court docket paperwork from Ontario, the settlement took place after Saint Mary’s threatened U Sports activities with court docket motion. In trade for the college not pursuing authorized motion, U Sports activities agreed to not examine the eligibility subject, in keeping with a written choice by Ontario Superior Court docket Decide Todd Archibald after Saint Mary’s took U Sports activities to court docket to have the settlement enforced.

Paperwork obtained by CBC present that even because the authorized battle performed out privately, U Sports activities informed Saint Mary’s on Nov. 2, 2017, that no matter how the Jack case was resolved, it will be amending its insurance policies “to replicate explicitly and unambiguously the place of our nationwide workplace and membership, which is that student-athletes in these circumstances shouldn’t be eligible to compete in U Sports activities competitors till having sat out for 12 months from the date of CFL participation.” That is what the rules now say.

College was afraid of ‘critical reputational hurt’

Court docket filings by Saint Mary’s present the college was frightened about “critical reputational hurt.” They’d heard from alumni and administrative officers “expressing grave concern concerning the impact of those occasions upon fundraising, alumni relations, and the recruitment of scholars to the college sooner or later.”

The authorized struggle then shifted to Nova Scotia after the athletic administrators of 4 Atlantic College Sport (AUS) faculties filed a grievance with AUS’s judicial committee on Nov. 1, 2017, relating to Jack’s eligibility. The difficulty turned public inside days.

Joe Taplin, who was the soccer group’s inside linebackers coach on the time, was sad about this.

“It pains me when the 4 different establishment [sic] primarily by jealousy collaborate behind our again to degrade our faculty,” he wrote in a Nov. 16, 2017, e mail to a number of college officers.

Saint Mary’s spent $475,973.49 on authorized payments in Ontario and Nova Scotia on the case. For the college’s 2017-18 and 2018-19 fiscal years, the college acquired $36.25 million and $37.8 million, respectively, from the province, in keeping with figures supplied by Saint Mary’s.

This drew condemnation from Tim Houston in 2019, who was the chief of the Official Opposition in Nova Scotia on the time and is now premier.

“And it is necessary to us that we’re a province that gives increased schooling to quite a lot of college students, however on the similar time, the cash that is invested by taxpayers is for the aim of training folks,” he mentioned on the time.

How a lot different events spent on authorized charges

Different establishments racked up authorized payments as a part of the court docket fights:

• Acadia College — $26,254.48.
• Atlantic College Sport — $44,000.
• U Sports activities — “Effectively over” $100,000, plus a “important” quantity of unpaid authorized companies, mentioned Graham Brown, the president and CEO of U Sports activities.

On March 2, 2018, SMU president Summerby-Murray wrote in an e mail to Mike Mahon, the president of the College of Lethbridge and the chair of U Sports activities’ board, that the college solely proceeded to litigation after U Sports activities “breached our mutual settlement” and “undermined a collegially-negotiated settlement.”

“Having mentioned that, I commit to making sure that Saint Mary’s improves its inside processes for compliance with U Sports activities guidelines sooner or later.”

Murphy mentioned the college has overhauled its procedures for participant eligibility. She cited the hiring of athletics and recreation director Scott Grey in late 2017, in addition to detailed each day monitoring on eligibility issues for present and recruited college students, and conducting eligibility schooling displays.

“It actually offers us a agency footing on eligibility and that is one of many huge enhancements made going ahead,” she informed CBC.

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