Long asserts UA did not intentionally withhold documents

Posted: October 10, 2009 at 6:28 a.m.

• Print item
• E-mail
• Share
• Tweet

FAYETTEVILLE — University of Arkansas vice-chancellor/director of athletics Jeff Long issued a statement of more than 700 words Friday afternoon to explain why a PowerPoint slide was not included in a Freedom of Information Act request by the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal and ArkansasSports360.com.

Long also released a transcript of an April 23 e-mail from him to University of Arkansas Chancellor David Gearhart. Earlier in the week, in an interview with the Northwest Arkansas Times, Gearhart said he supported Long and did not believe the athletic director intentionally withheld information in relation to the FOIA request.

The Northwest Arkansas Business Journal and ArkansasSports360.com, which later Friday posted a reaction to Long’s statement, published an article Sept. 21 concerning the UA’s negotiations with health-care providers, who were treating UA men and women athletes, and a UA proposal requesting sponsorships from various groups including health providers.

The UA did not provide, the two media outlets reported, a slide that had been part of the PowerPoint display in the UA’spresentations with the health-care providers.

A source provided the missing slide to the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal and ArkansasSports360.com and the news outlets reported it included: “[T]he UA’s desire for the groups to present new proposals to the department by January 9, 2009, and launch a new partnership by March 1, 2009. The slide also asked the group as a whole to meet ‘a minimum corporate sponsorship level of $450k per year,’ which would equal $150,000 per group per year.”

Last Sunday an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editorial raised concerns about the UA and its bylaw adherence to the FOIA.

Gearhart, returning a phone call after his office was contacted Wednesday for an article for publication in the Times last Thursday, said he had “looked into it myself” and was satisfied there was no intentional omission.

Gearhart said he had been told by Long that the slide was not in the final presentation to the health-care groups because the sponsorships issue was separated from medical care.

“The way it has been explained to me, that missing slide - for lack of a better way to put it - was actually not in the presentation except for the first presentation thatwas made. It was removed for presentation purposes almost a year ago in order to keep sponsorship issues off the table. So when they [the UA athletics department] were asked for the slides, the only ones theyhad were the ones with that one slide deleted. I am confident that is the case.”

Gearhart acknowledged “having one PowerPoint presentation without it and then having another one that has it doesn’t, frankly, look all that great, but I have looked into it myself and talked with him [Long] about it and talked to several people other than Jeff, and I am confident that indeed is in fact what happened. That when they were asked for the slides they gave what they actually had. I don’t feel in my heart they were trying to hide anything.”

Gearhart stressed the UA’s commitment to abide by the FOIA as did Long inhis statement Friday.

“I want to be unequivocal,” Long was quoted in his statement released by UA media relations, “in stating that I did not omit or intentionally withhold any record. In thisinstance I did not have a copy of the final presentation in my records. The suggestion that I would have purposefully withheld such a record from a presentation prepared by a member of my staff many months ago is absurd because the document was distributed and given to potential health care providers.”

In the enclosed April 23 e-mail to Gearhart, Long is quoted about the separation of the sponsorship from the health care process: “I also want to reiterate that while we hope and anticipate that our Medical Partners will also want to be sponsorship partners, this is not part of the medical partner decision making process.”

In his press release Friday, Long expressed “the athletic department remains committed to fulfilling its legal obligations,” but was quoted, “Sometimes, despite ourbest efforts, we may fail to provide a record simply from an oversight or a mistake. If we discover any such error, we supplement our previous responses in an effort to be forthcoming.”

In response to Long’s letter, ArkansasSports360.com posted Friday that “no supplemental response was offered by the UA until Thursday, Oct. 8. That was more than three weeks after the initial story ran, and it still did not include the document in question, a slide asking for $450,000 in sponsorship fees from local health care providers.”

ArkansasSports360.com noted Long’s April 23 e-mail to Gearhart wasnot included in the documents requested through the FOIA.

Also, ArkansasSports360.com responded Friday, “Initially asked about the omission on Sept. 15 by NorthwestArkansas Business Journal reporter Rob Keys, Long never offered to send a supplemental response. He said only that the request for $450,000 was to ‘set the stage for negotiations.’”

Continuing, ArkansasSports360.com asserted Friday, “Once the story was released, Long made a follow-up phone call to Chris Bahn of ArkansasSports360.com on Sept. 25, and the athletics director said the reason the documents were not released is because they were in possession of trainer Joe Sheehan, who no longer works at the university.Subsequent responses from the UA have included no mention of Sheehan.”

Sheehan, the Razorbacks’ head trainer for the 2008-09 academic year, left the UA in June to become the head trainer with the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League.

Sports, Pages 8 on 10/10/2009

Comments

To report abuse or misuse of this area please hit the "Suggest Removal" link in the comment to alert our online managers. Please read our comment policy.

Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.