A former Tennessee volleyball player who played for former Vols coach and incoming Rutgers athletic director Julie Hermann yesterday posted a blog that might come to be known as the “Spike Heard Round the Rutgers World.’’
Erin Zammert Ruddy resoundly confirmed a published report that Hermann verbally abused her players.
“It’s all true,’’ said Ruddy, who said she played volleyball at Tennessee from 1996-97.
Ruddy confirmed a May 25 Newark Star-Ledger story detailing Hermann’s alleged abuse, and reported the players met with Hermann after the season and produced a letter expressing their concerns.
“We shared our grievances with Julie face-to-face,’’ wrote Ruddy. “There were a lot of tears. It was not easy.’’
Hermann, whose appointment at Rutgers is under intense fire, said in a recent conference call she never had heard of the letter and never had heard her former players make the accusation.
In the letter, Hermann is said to have called her players, “whores, alcoholics and learning disabled.” Mike Rice, Rutgers’ former men’s basketball coach, was fired in April for physically and verbally his players.
“You can imagine my surprise when a few of my teammates Facebooked me to say that Julie had just been named the new athletic director at Rutgers,’’ wrote Ruddy. “My mouth literally dropped open. And it has continued to drop every day this story has been out, growing uglier and uglier.’’
Ruddy said she decided to address the issue on her blog after reading Hermann’s denials and comments, including some from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, that question her integrity.
“Let’s not engage in the character assassination that’s going on,’’ Christie said Tuesday night on his monthly radio show. “The letter that the Star-Ledger has, from what I’ve been told, is not even signed by the players.’’
At best, this appears to be another example of Hermann’s faulty memory. At worst, Hermann is not being truthful.
In addition to not remembering the letter, Hermann also said she did not remember being at the wedding of a former assistant coach, Ginger Hineline, who was fired and subsequently won a pregnancy-discrimination lawsuit against Hermann and the University of Tennessee.
A wedding video that Hineline used to win a $150,000 judgment shows Hermann catching the bride’s bouquet.
Hermann said she doesn’t know what her players’ motivation is for coming forward, and that she was heartbroken by her ex-players’ allegations.
“My teammates who shared their painful experiences and who went on the record are essentially being called liars and I can’t stand by and let that happen,’’ wrote Ruddy. “Not when I have the platform to make a statement of support. “To hear our credibility and our motivation called into question is infuriating.’’
What surely is unsettling, if not aggravating, to New Jersey taxpayers is a revelation by the Asbury Park Press that Rutgers paid Parker Executive Search $70,000 to vet Hermann, and it’s possible only a select group of top administrators saw the search form’s report, The Post has learned.
According to Candace Straight, one of six members on the Rutgers executive search committee, committee members did not see the report before recommending two candidates to university president Dr. Robert Barchi.
Straight was uncertain who received Parker’s report, but it likely was Barchi.
Straight said the committee recommended Hermann and Wisconsin deputy AD Sean Frazier to Barchi on the weekend of May 11-12, before Parker’s reports on both candidates were received. Both candidates met with Barchi, other administrators and toured the campus on May 13-14, after which Hermann was chosen.
So either Hermann wasn’t forthcoming in disclosing the lawsuits at Tennessee and Louisville that involved her, or she did and the highest level of Rutgers’ administration still thought her to be the best candidate.
“I did not see it and to the best of my knowledge no one else on the committee saw it,’’ said Straight. “When we made our recommendation, the vetting had not been completed.’’
Barchi has said, “Rutgers was deliberative at every stage of this process.”
But that does not appear to be the case. ESPN yesterday reported it had obtained emails from other selection committee members expressing concern about the selection process.
“Please, let us not at this late date attempt to convince ourselves and the public that there was sufficient time to delve deeply into either candidates’s documents,’’ wrote Ronald Garutti, a member of the committee and of the school’s board of trustees.
Parker has declined to comment on its role in assisting Rutgers in its search.
A source told The Post Parker executives discussed the Hermann situation with its attorneys and public-relations experts.
“We cannot speak publicly at this time about this or any other search we have completed or are in the process of executing,’’ Michael Plunkett, Parker’s manager of technology, wrote in an email to The Post.
lenn.robbins@nypost.com