Pokey off to Russia?
Looking to start anew, Pokey Chatman may have to go somewhere, someplace that hasn’t heard about the supposed allegations which caused her early exit from LSU. Of course, a whole other country might be a bit drastic …
BATON ROUGE, La. — Pokey Chatman, who resigned last March as LSU’s women’s basketball coach amid allegations of improper relationships with a former player, plans to take a job coaching a professional women’s club in Russia, WAFB-TV reported Thursday night.
The station reported that Chatman would join the Spartak Moscow Region team.
Chatman’s California-based agent, Eric Weisel, did not return a phone message left at his office. Reached by phone at his home, Chatman’s father, Douglas Chatman, said he could not confirm that his daughter had agreed to join Spartak.
Chatman resigned abruptly and has for the most part refrained from speaking publicly about her departure from LSU. She spoke about the matter only briefly at a youth basketball camp she hosted earlier this month, saying she believed she had no choice but to resign, even though LSU officials have said they did not force her to do so.
Following her departure from LSU, Chatman had a brief legal battle to recover bonuses that she argued was owed to her after LSU advanced to the Final Four under then-interim head coach Bob Starkey. LSU settled the matter by paying Chatman $160,000.
Chatman was 90-14 as LSU’s head coach. Before that, she was 15-5 as acting head coach during the latter stages of the 2003-04 season, when longtime coach Sue Gunter left the team because of an illness. That included a trip to the Final Four in New Orleans, where the Lady Tigers fell in the semifinals to Tennessee.
Chatman then led LSU to the Final Four the next two seasons and to the NCAA tournament this past season before she stepped down. - Espn.com
Maybe Pokey thinks it’s better to just duck and run, start over in another country where the mere mention of her name doesn’t carry the weight of a scandal. But is running the best answer?
I still stand by what I have been saying since this story broke. Pokey needs to come forward. Instead of running, she should face this head on. As we all know, “Wherever you go there you are.” Meaning, no matter how hard you try to run away form something, it will follow you wherever you go.
pokey chatman, lsu scandal, women’s basketball, russia, spartak, douglas chatman
August 20th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Well, I read on ourchart.com via afterellen.com that Pokey is running off to a rumored cool half million. So at least financial-wise, she’s landed on her bank account..er, feet.