Incompetence isn’t Free

Because it is so heartbreaking, I’ve tried to stay away from the Erik Plancher story. He is a UCF football player who passed away during a practice. UCF is being sued by the Plancher family for negligence.

However, I want to draw attention to this story because it demonstrates how bad UCF is at PR. From the article:

The sworn statements of two assistant coaches contradict the school's long-held stance that all staff members were aware of the football player's medical history and monitored him closely during every workout.

This kind of PR fuck up has happened more than once. Since Plancher’s death, UCF has made multiple statements to the media that have turned out to be false. Here’s PR genius Grant Heston’s comment to the Sentinel:

"Coaching staff and trainers acted appropriately at all times in connection with the workout," UCF spokesman Grant Heston said Tuesday. "While it remains university policy not to discuss specifics about the ongoing lawsuit, let me say that all public comment is based on the best information we have available at the time."

Translation: we are not liars, just incompetent. Heston is really earning that 91K a year. UCF’s solution to this PR problem will probably be to hire more PR people without firing the incompetent employees.