Former Duke A.D. Joe Alleva Catching Fan Anger At LSU

For the second time in his career, LSU A.D. Joe Alleva is in a tough situation.

At Duke it was the lacrosse hoax, where he showed a willingness to cave under pressure.

At LSU, it’s sort of the opposite: Alleva actually did the right thing, and the LSU fans are never going to forgive him for it.

Alleva suspended Will Wade after ESPN and Yahoo reported wiretaps of him discussing paying a player.

When Wade was asked to explain himself to his superiors, including obviously Alleva, he refused, on advice of his attorney.

What choice did Alleva have in the face of insubordination and a huge red flag?

It took a long time but he’s finally shown some courage. We don’t know the LSU landscape, but in the current situation it’s hard to imagine that he doesn’t have at least some support from the university, although eventually people will start to recall that it was Alleva who hired Wade.

The intensity of the reaction is fairly stunning though. Check out these stories below.

We never much liked Alleva. He always struck us as an empty suit frankly (and he had and apparently continues to have dreadful judgement when it comes to making hires).

The LSU fans are way off base here. Alleva had no choice but to suspend and unless we miss our guess, the administration and the school’s legal counsel were involved as well.

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