Coach Timothy Fader, Vindicated

Coach Timothy Fader, a nationally-recognized coach who was dismissed from his position as head wrestling coach at UW-Whitewater, is now the head wrestling coach at UW-Eau Claire.

As Whitewater’s current chancellor likes to be clear, I will be, too:

Coach Fader would never have been hired elsewhere in the UW System if there had been any legitimate basis for his non-renewal at UW-Whitewater.  Never.

There’s his complete vindication – a fine coach, a responsible man, unfairly dismissed from a program he ably led to national prominence.

I’ve never met Coach Fader, and have never had any contact with him, but from the very day that then-Chancellor Telfer suspended Coach Fader, people in Whitewater and far beyond, including coaches in competitive programs outside Wisconsin, began to write to me expressing surprise, frustration, and contempt for the decision to suspend, and later effectively to dismiss, Timothy Fader.

Some of those who wrote were athletically-oriented, others were knowledgeable about how to manage sexual assault complaints. Many were prominent in their fields, and offered me contacts to additional information about how matters like this should be handled.

In the months that followed, I wrote about Coach Fader’s dismissal, subsequent accounts of it, and the UW-Whitewater administration’s shifting, contradictory explanations on the matter.

Careful review makes clear that Richard Telfer over-reacted, exhibited (not for the first or last time) inferior management skills, placed reputational concerns over fairness to an individual, and that his athletic director, Amy Edmonds, was equally incompetent in her own role.

I’m ordinarily inclined to hope principally for success for UW-Whitewater’s athletes and coaches.

One can and nevertheless sometimes should expand one’s well-wishes, and this is such an occasion – to wish the very best for Timothy Fader and those now under his guidance.