Back in April, Matt Aguero was fired from his position as the track and field coach at St. Gregory’s University in Shawnee, Oklahoma. The reason? The coach who was paid to teach people how to run was fired for being passionate about running.
Aguero was fired for running the Boston Marathon.
If you wanted to be a fly on the wall for that firing, you’re in luck. Aguero recorded the entire conversation because he understood that his firing was unusual to say the least.
“Your personal competitiveness can take away the energy and commitment to a program,” athletic director Dr. Jeff Potter said while firing his coach, who’d been with the school for a little more than two years.
It somehow got worse from there:
Potter: I think there’s an innate selfishness to some degree—and I’m not saying that people don’t deserve personal time; they do. But I do think there is a fine line, or there’s a limit, where that crosses over, and that could interfere. And I don’t think it’s non-Christian or non-Catholic to put the personal behind the job thing at some point.
Aguero: Well, I’ll disagree with you there.
Cheri Boyd, SGU’s Director of Human Resources: I don’t think that it’s something you have to make a choice. You shouldn’t have to choose between.
A.: But he was saying I was putting my personal interests before, and that was one of my reasons for being terminated.
Boyd: Right.
Yep, even the school’s own Director of Human Resources wasn’t lifting a finger to help justify Aguero’s pink slip.
Aguero: I was told that I was being fired for running the Boston Marathon.
Potter: I said that’s a trigger. That’s exactly what that was.
A.: But that was the exact reason I was being fired, is that correct?
Boyd: That was what [Potter] came to me with.
Aguero’s performance as a coach wasn’t the issue. He was hired to reinstate a program which had been discontinued in 2008 and he managed to recruit 38 athletes and had one win an NAIA Championship in a very short amount of time. The Marathon itself took place over Easter weekend. Aguero had two conferences to attend on Friday and Saturday and his athletes earned 29 all-conference honors. He flew out to Boston on Sunday and ran the Marathon on Monday (during which the school was still on holiday). Aguero was back in time for Tuesday’s practice before he was fired on Wednesday.
Aguero has filed a grievance but he’s unsure if he even wants the job back and it’s hard to blame him:
“I filed a grievance so I can get my job back, but I don’t know if I even want it because of the way I was treated,” Aguero says. “Really, I just want to be vindicated. I was fired for a ridiculous reason.”
The one time where “being too passionate about one’s work” may have actually been a flaw which led to someone’s firing.
