Tulane head baseball coach Rick Jones has been reprimanded for comments he made on his weekly radio show about the Marshall Athletic Department. On May 13th, the Green Wave were slated to play a single game against Marshall as they started their C-USA series with Marshall. The Marshall Athletic Department decided to move up Saturday’s game with permission from C-USA officials to play a doubleheader on Friday and a single game on Sunday with an impending rain storm coming for Saturday. Tulane ended up losing the second game on Friday by a scored of 7-6 while taking the two other games in their series.
Jones stated on his radio show the following:
“That’s not an unrealistic expectation [of fair treatment] to have from the other team. It is an unrealistic expectation to have from a renegade bunch that does the things that they do, and I’m saying that without any reservation whatever. I’ve dealt with them too much. Something needs to be done.”
“What do they bring to our league? What do they bring to our league? And I’m talking about across the board. Things need to be cleaned up up there.”
It should be noted that this is not the first time that Tulane’s Rick Jones also had issues with the Marshall coaching staff this past weekend as The Charleston Gazette reported there is “Stories of genuine dislike between Jones, who has won eight C-USA tournaments at Tulane, and Waggoner have persisted since the latter came to MU in 2007. That has spilled over – Jones reportedly yelled at an MU official from the field after a pitching change in the recent series.”
Conference USA released a statement on the reprimand to Jones which is below.
Conference USA Commissioner Britton Banowsky has reprimanded Tulane head baseball coach Rick Jones for disparaging public comments made during a regularly-scheduled radio appearance last week.
“Coach Jones’ comments were in clear violation of the Conference’s Principles and Standards of Sportsmanship, and we expect him to follow these policies in the future,” Banowsky said.
“It is our expectation for our coaches and staff to conduct themselves in a manner consistent with the values of sportsmanship and professionalism at all times,” Tulane Director of Athletics Rick Dickson said. “I know Coach Jones is regretful that this did not occur in this instance.”
