Univ. of Minnesota President Eric Kaler yesterday said that the school "has received additional sexual harassment complaints" against former AD Norwood Teague, according to Marcus Fuller of the ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS. Kaler "wouldn't specify the number but said there were 'less than five' new cases being investigated by the university and the outside legal counsel hired to examine the situation." Kaler said he was "angry, disappointed and disgusted" with the situation. Kaler, when asked if the university needed to change its policy about mixing business with alcohol, "pointed out that this was a case of one individual with a 'long-standing problem' getting drunk and misbehaving." He added, "The vast majority of people behave responsibly. You have a glass or two of wine with your dinner. I think that's OK. ... I think this was a long-standing problem. The previous history shows this wasn't the first time." Kaler during Teague's resignation presser said that there "were rumors about Teague having issues with alcohol, but he said he didn't want to speculate." He said, "I trusted him to manage Gophers athletics for us. He was out raising money. He was out recruiting coaches, and I didn't see, nor did people tell me, about issues that might have preceded this. There's always 20-20 hindsight, but I was surprised." Parker Executive Search "received $112,000 from the U in the search for Teague," who came from VCU. But it "didn't uncover a VCU gender-discrimination complaint." Kaler said that the university "relied on Parker to do background checks, 'and they missed this.'" Kaler: "It's not clear if we have any legal recourse against them. We're certainly looking into that. But their view is that this was not publicly viewable information. That may well be true" (ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS, 8/20).
A LOOK AT THE NUMBERS: In St. Paul, Shipley & Montgomery note UM "has been releasing expense reports filed by Teague, giving the public a look at how the athletics department spends some of its money." Teague in '13, while raising money for the Athletes Village project, invited four donors to the National Football Foundation HOF dinner in N.Y., where he and donors "all stayed at the Waldorf Astoria for $663.31 a night during a two-day trip that cost a total of $7,448.57" (ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS, 8/20).
