Editorial

Once again, the Fresno State athletic department has managed to drum up as much suspicion as humanly possible by exercising its tight-lipped public relations policy.

Women’s basketball coach Stacy Johnson-Klein was placed on paid administrative leave Wednesday, and ever since, getting particulars out of athletics has been tougher than getting a confession out of O.J.

What the P.R. brass in athletics disregards is the whisperings that begin flying about when the department acts like a lock box.

When the athletic department shuts up every athlete and administrator, it creates a conspiracy of silence that presents a breeding ground for suspicion and rumors about what really happened.

It also hurts the department in that it begins to look as if athletics has something to hide.

It begins to beg the question: Is the department just trying to save face?

And this isn’t the first time this has happened.

Shauna Erickson, the equestrienne who died last year. Terry Pettis’ domestic abuse case. And now the potential secondary NCAA violations committed by Johnson-Klein and freshman guard Kendra Walker-Roche.

The bigwigs over in the North Gym are drawing far more attention to the situation than it would otherwise get. If they had just said from the outset what was happening and explained the scope of their investigation, it wouldn’t have become such an enormous issue, with news vans now on campus daily.

Every outlet is trying to scoop the others, making reporters work even harder and putting an even brighter spotlight on the situation while the athletic department is trying to kill the lights and silence the crowd.

Athletics would be much better served employing an open-information policy, or at least providing enough information to squash rumors before they catch on.