I dunno. Makes me feel sorry for the poor young ladies.. *NOT*
kurt http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/06/25/in_somerville_hannahs_style_cuts_a_swath?mode=PF In Somerville, Hannah's style cuts a swath By Benjamin Gedan and Joanna Weiss, Globe Correspondent Globe Staff | June 25, 2004 When John Hannah, the New England Patriots' Hall of Fame former lineman, came to Somerville to coach the high school football team and be the citywide youth coordinator, Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone hailed the move as a major sports coup. But Hannah's hard-charging, Alabama-bred style apparently has its detractors: Five months after his arrival, three of the four employees in the city's Youth Department have quit, one saying that Hannah was verbally abusive and created a "locker room" atmosphere in the office. In a letter to Curtatone, another former employee accused Hannah of acting "as if he were a dictator." The coach's demeanor, the letter stated, was less professional than "grade school tree-house meetings." Hannah, who described his management style as "aggressive, entrepreneurial," said yesterday that he loves his job and isn't fazed by criticism. He said he took the Somerville post with a mandate to make changes and immediately found problems: not enough programs for older children, for example, and few youth offerings in the afternoon hours. "I had to gather a lot of data," Hannah said. "I guess I was demanding, yes, in trying to gather that data." Curtatone defended Hannah's performance, saying he has already drawn results. "We don't have months and years to start addressing these problems," Curtatone said. "We needed to address them years ago. There's more that happened in the last four months than happened in the last four years." Hannah, 53, played for the Patriots from 1973 to 1985 and was selected to nine Pro Bowls. He receives a salary of about $75,000: $15,000 for coaching at the high school and $60,230 for the youth coordinator post. Before taking the job, he worked in the financial services industry while volunteering as an assistant football coach at Governor Dummer Academy in Byfield, helping the team win two New England championships. Hannah, whose stepdaughter attended Governor Dummer, offered to be a coach and immediately threw himself into the job, said head coach Mark Gerry. Hannah attended nearly every practice, Gerry said, and sometimes stayed on the field so long that Gerry had to tell him the players had other things to do. Coaching at a private high school seemed an education for Hannah, Gerry said: He had to learn, for example, that students were still committed to football, even if they had to leave the field for homework or other activities. And the players, he said, had to adjust to a coaching style they hadn't experienced, from a man who spent years in NFL locker rooms and played college ball under University of Alabama legend Paul "Bear" Bryant. "Occasionally, if things weren't going well in practice, he would really let the kids have it," Gerry said. "Not in an inappropriate way, but maybe in a way they weren't used to from me. He'd be speaking to the kids, and then he'd turn around and wink at me." But Hannah won high marks from many players and their parents, said Maria Campbell, whose son Christopher was Dummer's starting quarterback last year. Hannah instilled in her son a love for the game, she said, and always encouraged his players. "He was tough," Campbell said, but "he would never put the kids down. He expected a lot from them, and he got it from them." She and Gerry also praised Hannah for spearheading the team's football banquet, a Southern staple. "He said that we really needed to learn how to celebrate football up here," Gerry said. Students at Dummer were so appreciative that, at the end of the season last fall, they collected money to buy Hannah a fly rod and reel as a thank-you gift. Hannah credited his Dummer experience for making him want to work with youth full time, and he said he took a pay cut to take the Somerville job. But his new Somerville coworkers reacted quickly, and badly, to his demeanor. "I felt I was being commanded to do things. I felt I wasn't being respected," said Jennifer Lawrence, 23, who left her job yesterday as coordinator of Somerville's Youth Leadership Development Program, complaining about Hannah's gruff language and authoritarian style. Jessica Lopez, 18, a part-time youth worker who helped run an afterschool program, said Hannah was critical of the job she was doing. "I refuse to work with a guy like that," she said. "I love my job. It breaks my heart leaving." In a letter being sent to Curtatone, Brian Tuttle, a former youth department worker who left this month because of budget cuts, said he had never seen a similar workplace demeanor. Hannah, he said, once conducted a staff meeting "from behind a greasy bucket of KFC." Hannah yesterday attributed that episode to hard work. "I actually conduct business meetings and eat at the same time so I can get more done," he said. "It was time efficiency. I was running late, and I stopped and got some crispy strips and came to the meeting and said let's go through it." Hannah contended that his hard work and football connections have already helped Somerville's youth. Last week, the city announced that it would offer an NFL-sponsored camp for local athletes. And when the Lowell Spinners, a minor league baseball club, recently asked him to throw out a game's first pitch, he said that, in lieu of pay, he asked if he could bring a group of local youths to the game. Mary Jo Rossetti -- chairwoman of the city's School Committee, which hired Hannah as the high school's coach -- spoke glowingly about the NFL star. She has been amazed by his work, she said, and her husband, Richard, a football fan, is pretty excited, too. Hannah is "a very polite, pleasant, Southern gentleman," she said. "He's doing everything that's good, and some." ______________________________________________________ RollTideFan - The University of Alabama Athletics Discussion List "Welcome to RollTideFan! Wear a cup!" To join or leave the list or to make changes to your subscription visit http://listinfo.rolltidefan.net
