Where's Bruce?

Long time lurker, fan since ‘96, felt compelled to make an account to post on this.

Regarding the team’s (and the league’s) handling of this - can you imagine the analogous situation if this were the Pats? Team is humming along, in title contention two thirds of the way through the season, then Belichick gets disappeared for a month and then resigns, and nothing beyond the vaguest statement is made about why? Foxboro would be on fire. If the Revs organization is punting and saying their hands are tied and you need to ask the league for details, then Garber needs to take time out from his busy schedule of tongue-bathing Messi and give us some details. I’m sure there are legal considerations that limit what can be said, but someone needs to figure out asap how to share something more than what’s been shared. You can’t just come from on high, tank what was looking like a very promising season for this team, and then not give even the slightest explanation to your customers. It’s absurd that anyone thinks this is an appropriate way to do business.

Regarding what actually got Bruce pushed out, we barely know anything, but we have some context to guide us. The owner of this team got caught paying for services from what may very well have been a trafficked sex worker, and the league didn’t think that was bad enough to force him out. And Belichick is widely known to be an a-hole of the highest magnitude, and the Krafts don’t seem to have an issue with that. So whatever Bruce did, it’s hard to imagine it rose to the level of other things that MLS and/or the Krafts turned a blind eye to. In all likelihood this is a situation where Bruce was a garden variety a-hole to various members of his staff, someone got butthurt and filed a complaint, the league freaked out and felt compelled (on the advice of an army of lawyers) to go zero tolerance, and the team just rolled over and didn’t push back because management doesn’t give a crap and just wanted the headache to go away.

Again, it’s all speculation, but ask yourself if it’s really plausible that whatever Bruce did is worse than what Kraft got caught doing, or whether Bruce’s workplace behavior could possibly be worse than Belichick’s. The answer is almost certainly no, which leads us to some unpleasant conclusions about why Bruce is gone and the other two are still around.

 

They said that he's still an employee of the club in the press conference. I found that really odd given he's being replaced as HC. This whole thing reeks of an in-house HR issue that's played out publicly. My question is why did the league get involved? Were the comments egregious enough to warrant legal action? Is that why Bilello gave us nothing in the press conference citing the league's investigation?

As Nicol said on ESPN FC, it's the manager's job to hold his staff accountable. The words exchanged had to have gone beyond the revs/soccer related.

 

What if saying something would disclose or lead to speculation about someone's sexual orientation? Or their history of addiction? Or their mental health issues? Do we "deserve" to know about any of that? What if the team felt that if too much information was released, it could lead to online harassment or slander of club employees, as it did in the case of Ime Udoka's suspension? Have you seen the kind of stuff that's being written about Richie Williams on social media already? Is giving fans more information worth it at that point?

What if releasing more information would either confirm or lead to speculation about the identity of the reporter? What message would that send to employees the next time they witness a violation of the league's cod of conduct? What impact would that have on the club's culture?

This is hardly analogous, because your question had no possible legal or ethical ramifications.

They did. Onalfo said it was a mutual decision. Shalrie basically confirmed this last night when he told TBM that he had asked to be released from his contract when Richie Williams was named interim head coach.

I watched the press conference over to make sure I wasn't losing my mind. No one asked any of these questions.

Pablo Maurer from The Athletic asked Bilello something about ownership's temperature - I don't recall the exact wording. Bilello said something like everyone was disappointed, but ownership was supportive and that they still viewed this as an MLS Cup contender.

 

You nailed it, Mike. It's a sensitive topic, whatever Bruce said. The revs didn't handle this gracefully but I'm not sure knowing the exact quote will do anyone any good. Let's move on and focus on winning the damn Cup.

 

My working theory is that Arena's comments weren't reported to the club - they were reported to the league.

 

I understand what you are saying and where you're coming from, but someone in the organization should be intelligent enough to give an explanation of what happened without naming names. I fully understand that a significant minority of the population are ignorant A*holes who harass anybody who doesn't do exactly what they want to happen. However, if everything is kept under wraps, that's similar to Comrade Arena is no longer available to answer your questions.

 

Listen, none us know what was said.

But I would suggest there's probably a very good reason why the league is willing to tell us that Dante Vanzeir was suspended for making a racist remark, but doesn't seem willing to tell us anything about what Bruce Arena said.

 

First it's 'Richie Williams will be leading the team as caretaker manager' next day he's out.

Reminds me of when Friedel was fired and Burns was at the press conference expecting to find his replacement then Burns is fired.

 

My theory is that there have been complaints over time about Arena's speech and behavior and that when confronted by HR, he was either unwilling or unable to make changes.

I guess my rationale is that I don't see Bruce doing something so egregious that there's no second chance, no suspension w/ possibility of re-instatement, etc. As others have said, players/coaches have been reprimanded/sanctioned/etc. for pretty serious offenses, which have been announced.

Possibly there was a way that he could return, but he wasn't willing to agree to the conditions - so the only way forward was to resign.

I guess of all the possibilities that I've thought of, I'd guess that his ego/hard-headedness led to this result, one way or another (i.e., I'm in charge here, I'm not going to listen to some HR flunky tell me what I can and cannot say to my staff).

So, you're saying we should blindly trust that the league is doing the right thing?

As I've said, there are things that they clearly can't talk about and no one is arguing that. The problem is that Bilello used that as a shield to avoid giving any information. I gave a crystal clear example in his response to Tara Sullivan's question.

That shows exactly the problem - Shalrie/TBM apparently (I haven't heard/read that yet) explained it in simple terms, yet the Bilello/Onalfo couldn't even say that Shalrie requested and was given his release? Don't fans deserve to know that? Is that somehow violating Shalrie's rights - or anyone else's?

Again, that's a cute little tap-dance around the question - they wanted to know if ownership was involved and Bilello's response totally evades the question.

 

This was in a story from The Athletic in September (they claim it was confirmed by multiple sources, 8 in one case, 12 in another), somehow I missed it:

Sources familiar with the investigation said that some questions asked by investigators centered around comments Arena allegedly made behind closed doors and to his coaching staff.

And, there's new reporting out that Arena was grooming Dave Van Den Bergh to succeed him and that he tried to help get Williams hired at Hartford Athletic.

 

It makes me wonder if it wasn't just one thing Bruce had said but it was more like persistent infringement. Maybe RW took it to the league and the league felt enough is enough.

 

I don't see how grooming one of his assistants (Van Den Bergh) to succeed him, and helping another of his assistants (Williams) get a head coaching gig can be a bad thing. Unless one of the assistants thought that he should be in line as Bruce's successor and not the other guy.

Williams was told he wasn't coming back at some point earlier in the season, and presumably Arena recommended him to Hartford. If Williams was so pissed at being passed over, could that have been what caused him to blow it all up? I hope not, but if that's the case, he should never get another coaching gig again.

 

Or maybe RW was triggered atx being usurped as Bruce's successor by a person who did not have the same long history with Arena that he had. Maybe it was as simple as "you betray me, you bastard? Fine, I'll see you burn in hell."
As for the League, and the Revs, there is nothing good whatsoever in how they have supervised/managed all this.

 

I imagine that Williams was pretty steamed about getting leap-frogged by VDB and Arena tried to mollify him by trying to help in find a landing place elsewhere. When that didn't work out, RW was probably thinking 'fat lot of good that did me' and then went off to MLS HR.

That pretty clearly seems to be want VDB was implying.

 

If that's the case, that's pretty vindictive and the Revs never, ever should have put him in charge of the first team, even on an interim basis. As for it being perceived as retaliation for whistle-blowing, he was told he'd be gone by the end of the year anyway, so I can't see how it would be that way. If anything, they could have paid him for the rest of the year and cut him loose, since he'd be gone anyway.

 

This pretty much verifies most people's opinion that the front office doesn't know Jack!