Bobby Petrino will no longer coach the Arkansas Razorbacks. He was fired as head football coach at the University of Arkansas, the school’s athletics director Jeff Long said Tuesday.
Petrino’s dishonesty about his “personal and professional relationship” with a fellow employee Jessica Dorell, who was riding with him on a motorcycle that crashed earlier this month was key to the decision, the AD told reporters.
“Coach Petrino knowingly misled the athletics department and the university about the circumstances related to his accident,” Long said in a news conference at the university’s baskeball arena in Fayetteville. Though the 51-year-old coach had “multiple opportunities” over four days after the accident to be forthcoming, “he chose not to.”
It obviously doesn’t help matters that Dorell is half his age and engaged. And Petrino is a married father or four. Petrino gave Dorell the job, and preferential treatment in it.
According to CNN:
Long said Petrino had had a “consensual relationship” with Dorrell, and that Petrino had given Dorrell “some $20,000” and failed to disclose their relationship when recommending her for the job with the department, thereby giving her “an unfair and undisclosed advantage for a position on his football staff.”
Dorrell, Long said, was one of 159 applicants for the job.
“By itself, Coach Petrino’s consensual relationship with Miss Dorrell prior to her joining the football staff was not against university policy,” Long said. “By itself, it’s a matter between individuals and their families.
Dorell’s wedding registry and wedding guest defaced and shut-down (more on that here)
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