AMHERST — UMass athletic director Ryan Bamford learned of football coach Mark Whipple’s controversial comments Sunday morning. By that evening, he made the decision to suspend Whipple for one week without pay for using the word “rape” in postgame comments while describing a play that didn’t draw a pass interference penalty.
The hours in between were filled with plenty of discussion with leaders inside and outside the UMass community. Bamford said he tried to cast a wide net in the people he talked with about the discipline for Whipple’s comments before settling on the one-game suspension.
“Anytime you make decisions as a leader in college athletics in this university and this department, there are decisions I’m going to make that some are going agree with and some aren’t, and that’s what being a leader is all about,” said Bamford during a press conference held Tuesday at the Mullins Center. “Ultimately for us, I had a lot of good thoughtful conversations with campus leadership (and) with a number of other people outside of campus to make sure I had the right perspective. When this came up on Sunday, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t making a decision or doing anything that was in a vacuum.”
In addition to losing six days of pay, Whipple will also attend sensitivity training from UMass’ Workplace Learning & Development office, the details of which are still being arranged, Bamford said. The athletics director in his fourth full year at UMass would not elaborate on the other disciplinary options that were on the table for Whipple, saying he consulted plenty of different voices, including those of several female leaders, before offering his recommendation to UMass Chancellor Kumble R. Subbaswamy.
“Whenever you look at these things, you make sure you get the input of not just those close to you, but others,” Bamford said. “Certainly I looked at all the things in front of us to make a good decision.”
Acting head coach Ed Pinkham, the Minutemen’s defensive coordinator, said Whipple addressed the team before leaving campus.
“His message was he probably made an error in judgment and he was sorry for it and he didn’t mean it that way and this is what the results were going to be in this day and age,” Pinkham said. “He wasn’t bitter, he was very reasonable. In this day and age and the culture in which we live, I thought he did a good job explaining it to the kids and I think the kids understood exactly where we’re all that.”
Saturday’s 3:30 p.m. game against South Florida at McGuirk Stadium will not be Pinkham’s first time as an acting head coach. In 2012 while serving as Elon’s defensive coordinator, Pinkham was thrust into the role a little less than 48 hours before a game when Phoenix coach Jason Swepson was hospitalized with chest pains.
Pinkham said he will still handle the defensive play calls Saturday. Quarterbacks coach Spencer Whipple, Mark’s son, will handle the offensive plays with special teams coordinator Charles Walker making decisions with the kicking game. Pinkham, though, will still make the important calls he normally doesn’t have to concern himself with on game day like when to punt or when to try to convert on fourth down.
“It’s a little bit different when you’re the head coach,” Pinkham said. “All those tough decisions, do you go for it on fourth down, do you go for two, do you punt? Those are things you don’t worry yourself with when you’re the coordinator, offensively or defensively, it’s usually the head coach who makes those decisions.”
Bamford said he doesn’t expect the Minutemen will face many long-term ramifications from the incident. Despite the suspension and comments making news nationally, Bamford said he doesn’t believe it will have a negative effect on UMass’ recruiting because the entire situation is not indicative of the type of person, coach and leader Whipple is for the Minutemen.
“I don’t think it’s something that we’ve come to know from Coach Whipple,” Bamford said. “I think this is an isolated incident and from our standpoint at the end of this week when Coach Whipple gets reinstated, he’s the leader of our program and we’re going to go forward. I don’t anticipate it will hurt us at all in recruiting.
“We’ve got a lot of football left and I think that certainly contributes a lot to what recruits think of our program. If we have a level of success in the next six games, then that will certainly help when we come to sign young men in December and in February.”
Josh Walfish can be reached at jwalfish@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshWalfishDHG. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage.
