Here again is that age-old question of second chances, when we give them and who deserves them, through the lens of modern technology and sensibilities.
Should the author of a set of undeniably sexist tweets — ugly, unintelligent, downright backward missives — be held accountable for those remarks into perpetuity?
There is a healthy discussion to be had there.
What I can’t figure out for the life of me is why Merritt Paulson wants his fragile soccer empire to be the setting for that debate.
By hiring decorated former Manchester United midfielder Phil Neville as the next coach of the Timbers, Paulson chooses once again to pit himself against his club’s most loyal supporters.
Instead of showing compassion for fans who sat at the center of a sexual misconduct scandal that rocked the sport, Paulson is thumbing his nose at them.
Instead of denouncing misogyny, Paulson is doubling down on it.
Even if Neville was unquestionably the best coaching free agent out there, which is debatable, hiring him for this club at this moment goes down as a tin-eared decision that demonstrates contempt for Portland’s soccer community.
Was there not a coach available who could have united the Timbers’ fractured locker room without also stoking painful divisions between supporters and the organization?
Was it Inter Miami’s 35 wins in 90 matches under Neville that so dazzled Paulson and helped him justify diving headfirst into another controversy?
The selection of this new gaffer — soccer lingo — is simply a major gaffe.
It was nearly 40 minutes into Neville’s introductory news conference on Tuesday at Providence Park, that I wondered whether he finally realized just how significant of a challenge he had taken on by agreeing to come to Portland.
It was after the fifth question about his tweets.
Neville spoke passionately about his experiences coaching the English women’s team for three-plus years. He said that until he coached the Lionesses, he was “ignorant” to the challenges women face. He vowed to ardently support the Thorns, not “because I’m here in Portland and because of the things that have been happening. That’s just who I am and what I do.”
He talked about his parents. He talked about the way they raised him.
“Without a shadow of a doubt,” Neville said, “when I see those tweets that I put out, it’s not a reflection but it also is not something that’s me. And it doesn’t make me happy.”
His voice trailed off there, and he slunk back in his chair. For a moment, he seemed beaten. Exhausted. And in many cities, that might have been enough. We could have called off the fight.
But it is yet further evidence of the Timbers’ malfeasance that Paulson and general manager Ned Grabavoy willfully put Neville in a position where he cannot win.
This organization was ground zero of sexual misconduct in women’s soccer.
It has been barely two years since Mana Shim and Sinead Farrelly went public with their accounts of former Thorns coach Paul Riley’s sexual misconduct, allegations that were corroborated in hair-raising detail by the Yates Report last October. While that investigation was underway, the Timbers waited until Andy Polo’s domestic violence arrest became public before electing to suspend, and eventually release, the midfielder.
What if Neville has truly reformed and he truly does care? How can he ever hope to prove that in a place where there is not, nor should there be, any forgiveness.
Everyone who deserves a second chance is not entitled to a second chance everywhere.
No one should conflate Neville’s tweets, including one where he described women as wanting “equality until it comes to paying the bills” and another in which he dimly suggested women would be too busy performing household chores to watch sports, with the horrifying actions of Riley and Polo. Neville’s transgressions were stupid and offensive, not criminal or abusive.
But I go back to this: The Timbers have asked their fans to stick with them through so much. Why add this to the list?
It’s not that Neville should be blacklisted or professionally exiled for his tweets. I don’t believe that.
It’s that any reasonable person could have looked at Neville’s baggage and the current state of the Timbers’ relationship with this city and concluded it was an awful fit.
Neville apparently had offers from other MLS clubs. The better outcome would have been for the Timbers to let him accept one of those.
Some might say that Neville’s tweets should only be disqualifying here if they would be disqualifying anywhere else. I disagree. It is necessary to hold the Timbers to a higher standard in the same way Michigan State needed to have zero tolerance for allegations of sexual impropriety involving football coach Mel Tucker after the stain of Larry Nassar, and in the same way that Penn State cannot defend even the whiff of scandal following its history of abuse.
Neville said he interviewed for the Timbers job primarily with Grabavoy and, you guessed it, Paulson.
Paulson, who sat in the back row next to CEO Heather Davis for Tuesday’s introduction, was not transparent about the reasons for Riley’s departure from the Thorns in 2015 and months later vouched for him to another club, according to investigations from last year.
He does not have the credibility to ask fans to accept a coach whose past actions could be so triggering.
Paulson is in the process of selling the Thorns to new owners by the end of the year. And the Timbers are also not the same organization they were before Gavin Wilkinson and Mike Golub were fired. Three of the top five executive positions are held by women, including Davis.
But Paulson exerts significant daily control and possesses ultimate decision-making power of the Timbers. He signed off on this hire. And if the decisions keep raising the same old questions, then there simply hasn’t been enough change.
Instead, Paulson and those under him seem to hope everyone just forgets and moves on.
With the decision to hire Neville, Paulson seems to be saying to his detractors, “Oh come on now, aren’t you over that yet?”
Ultimately, I don’t believe Neville’s tweets should disqualify him from coaching anywhere ever. He has apologized, comprehensively and convincingly, and not repeated his mistakes. Is it possible that a doltish man-child who first joined the hyper-masculine world of professional sports at the tender age of 13 can atone for terrible judgment?
Goodness, I hope so.
I hope he is not the same person at 46 that he was 11 years ago and that those empty-headed, buffoonish comments no longer reflect his views toward women. That he is not the sexist that those tweets made him out to be.
But here’s the thing: We don’t know. We could not know.
The person who is making that character judgment on our behalf has himself repeatedly fallen short when it comes to protecting women.
It is possible for a person to learn from his mistakes.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like Paulson has.
Stories by Bill Oram
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