University of Hartford men’s basketball coach John Gallagher resigned from his position, just one day before the Hawks’ first game of the season.
In his resignation letter, Gallagher said that the University has “consistently and repeatedly undermined the men’s basketball program to the point where player safety and well-being has been jeopardized.” Gallagher cited a decision to not send an athletic trainer to a recent scrimmage at Dartmouth, where a Hartford player injured his knee.
“That was the final straw,” Gallagher told The Athletic. He also noted the university’s refusal to issue a credit card to the team’s director of basketball operations in order to purchase team meals on the road — with no subsequent method to purchase food for the team. “Not only does that violate NCAA rules,” he wrote in the letter, “but it once again places our players’ health and well-being at risk.”
Gallagher’s resignation is just the latest in a drawn-out battle between the coach and the school. In 2021, the Hawks won the America East tournament title to earn a bid to the NCAA Tournament. Two months later, the school’s board of regents voted to drop the school from Division I to Division III, citing a money-saving study.
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Hartford is scheduled to play as a Division I independent this year. Last year, the team won just 12 games with only seven scholarship players.
Gallagher, a vocal opponent of the school’s decision to move divisions, filed a lawsuit against one board member, claiming he was misled about the school’s plans. Gallagher is also in a dispute with the university over bonuses clauses in his contract. Gallagher cited a clause in his contract that prevents him from speaking negatively about the university as an added factor in his decision to resign.
Gallagher told The Athletic he is not leaving for another job.
“I have witnessed the profound deterioration of this once-proud institution under the current administration,” he wrote. “Honestly it’s been hard to watch.”
(Photo: David Butler II / USA Today)
