The former coach of Virginia Commonwealth University’s volleyball team, James Finley, is aggrieved because he believes the school fired him for being gay. Finley, who was fired Nov. 19, has since filed charges with the school’s Office for Institutional Equity. An investigation is forthcoming, and should that prove unsuccessful in reinstating Finley he may look to the law for support. Although evidence is not conclusive for why Finley was fired, the lack of justification demands the school investigate why the coach was let go.
Typically, an athletic coach is fired for poor performance — as when Virginia football coach Mike London dropped three coaches Sunday. Poor performance is also the stated reason for why VCU removed Finley, one day after the season had ended. “Our program needs a different direction and different leadership to attain our goals of achieving at an elite level nationally,” said Ed McLaughlin, the athletic director, in the school’s press release. Finley, however, said the athletic director told him the decision had nothing to do with his record when the two parties met. Finley said it was the first time McLaughlin had spoken to him since the director took over in August. Finley, who is openly gay — he and his husband attend VCU games — said the director had gone out of his way to ignore him. Considering that VCU’s athletic department has been mum on the issue, for various personnel reasons, Finley’s depiction of things stands as the most compelling evidence that the firing was prejudice-based.
The numbers give credence to Finley’s contention that he was fired for out-of-bounds reasons. This year, the team finished with 25 wins and 6 losses — the best season since Finley arrived in 2005. The team was 6-21 that year — one of the worst clubs in the conference. Finley led the Rams to success in the Colonial Athletic Association and eventually into the more competitive Atlantic-10. This year, the team’s first in the conference, saw the Rams make the Atlantic-10 semifinals. One day after their tournament exit, and eight years after coming to Richmond, Finley was told to get out.
Finley is adamant the firing was non-sports related. To various news outlets he has cited his team’s stellar athletic rise and academic success. And though his case cannot be certainly known, his testimony speaks to a director who wouldn’t accept him. Sexuality being an especially difficult topic in sports — where athletes face the possibility of groupthink and an atypical pressure to embrace certain physical norms — if Finley was fired because he was gay, it would indicate a major step backward for VCU and college sports as a whole. His former employer should grant him the privilege of a full investigation and reinstate him if he was fired on unethical grounds.
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