Yesterday, less than 96 hours after Dana Duckworth unexpectedly stepped down as head coach of the Alabama Gymnastics team, UA Athletic Director Greg Byrne announced her replacement: ‘Bama alum Ashley Priess-Johnston would be the next skipper of the program.
To say that everything about the Tide’s coaching loss-and-search-and-replacement has been irregular would be a grotesque understatement. From Dana’s abrupt departure, to the unseemly haste in which she was replaced, even to the hire itself, it seems as though the Administration is giving Alabama fans the mushroom treatment: Keep them in the dark, and feed them manure.
Before we delve into this too much, let me make something crystalline: none of this is meant as an attack on Ashley Priess-Johnston.