Glass responds to dismissal from hockey team

On Jan. 7, The Daily Free Press reported that Boston University men’s hockey coach Jack Parker had dismissed junior forward Andrew Glass from the team for “missing meetings and being late.” According to Glass, though, Parker’s reasons are not accurate and his dismissal is not justified.

For starters, Glass said he never missed a meeting. He did admit that he was late for two meetings during the week leading up to BU’s Dec. 11 game at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

“I was in the trainer’s room and was several minutes late for one meeting and 10 minutes late for another meeting,” Glass said in an email to The Daily Free Press. “However, late is late and I accept that responsibility. Coach Parker addressed me during the week and said ‘to not let it happen again.’ I told him that it wouldn’t happen again and that was the entire conversation.”

The next week, finals week, the team had one last practice scheduled for Tuesday before everyone went home for break. Glass said he told Parker he wouldn’t be able to make it because he had an exam and Parker told him that was fine.

While studying in the library that Monday, Glass said he received a text message saying that there had been a change in plans and that there was now an optional team weightlift that day at 1:30 p.m. Glass said the text indicated that anyone with study commitments could just go after and do the workout on their own, which is what Glass did.

“By NCAA rules,” Glass said, “a team cannot have organized practices or workouts during exam week and based upon the past two years, if you had conflicts, you completed the workouts on your own time. Not only was I studying in the library, but I came right afterwards around 3:30 to work out.

“I was the only player on the team to have a final exam the next day, and because the team was in New York for the majority of the weekend, I had little time to study. Nonetheless, I figured that taking care of my academics was something I shouldn’t have to explain, let alone get punished for.”

From there, things spiraled out of control. When Glass next showed up at Agganis Arena that Wednesday, he found his stall in the locker room completely empty. Glass said he sought out Parker to get an explanation, but that he was told Parker was away in New York. Glass said he could not get in touch with Parker for the rest of the week, either, and left for Christmas break still not knowing why his locker had been cleared out.

“One would assume that when someone clears out your belongings and suspends you that he would contact you almost immediately to explain this severe action,” Glass said.
Glass said that when he finally did see Parker upon returning to school, he had no chance to ask questions or explain himself.

“I met Coach Parker in the hallway,” Glass said, “and he basically greeted me with, ‘Where the [expletive] have you been?’ Before I could get in a word edgewise and without any explanation, he told me to get out of the rink and that I was suspended. I did not receive any explanation about why or how this situation had reached this point.”

While the Terriers traveled to Hoffman Estates, Ill., for the Shillelagh Tournament, Glass said he spent New Year’s with his family and sent an email to Parker outlining his frustrations and lack of understanding about why he was suspended. Glass said he did not receive a response to his email and that when he saw Parker the Tuesday after the team came back, Parker told him to have his father come in so the three could have a meeting.

Michael Glass, like his son, said he had been trying to get ahold of Parker for nearly two weeks to get an explanation for his son’s suspension.

“When Andrew told me about his suspension and the reasons for it, I tried to contact Parker by phone,” Michael Glass told The Daily Free Press in an email. “He never returned my call and I waited two weeks for him to set up a meeting. This was a total of three weeks for Andrew, which included dealing with this while trying to study for his final exams and over the Christmas break.”

The Glasses finally got their chance to talk to Parker that Friday, but the meeting did not go anything like what they were expecting. Andrew Glass said it got off to an icy start when Parker did not shake hands or make eye contact with either of them.

He said they only talked about him being late for meetings and missing the optional lift for a few minutes before Parker shifted the focus of the conversation to an assignment given out at the end of last season. The assignment was to rank yourself and your teammates to show where you thought you fit in. Glass said he ranked himself around fifth or sixth among the 12 forwards on the team.

“I took the assignment as an opportunity to show that I thought I could be a second or third line guy next year, and wanted to show him that,” Glass said. “I am a skilled hockey player and I thought I had an opportunity to be an important part of the team next season, especially with a younger team.

“I saw my self-evaluation as a positive thing. Wouldn’t any coach want a player to be confident and have goals for his upcoming season? Coach Parker didn’t see it that way. He basically ridiculed my ability to self evaluate.”

Michael Glass said he was stunned by what he was hearing from Parker.

“The reason for Andrew’s suspension made no sense to me,” he said. “When Parker finally set up a meeting with us, I asked Andrew several times if there was going to be a bomb dropped on me regarding some other incident and Andrew insisted there were no other such issues. During our meeting, it became quite clear that Parker wasn’t even sure of the details himself as to why Andrew missed the optional workout and he definitely didn’t care what Andrew had to say.

“Parker mentioned that there were ‘other issues’ and for several minutes I listened to an irrational monologue from Parker about a written exercise last spring in which the players rated themselves and their teammates. Parker was very upset that Andrew rated himself higher than he thought he should have. This was the only specific ‘bunch of things’ that Parker brought up. If Andrew is guilty of anything, it’s that he believed in himself and wanted to play a bigger role on the team.”

Andrew Glass said Parker went on to question his work ethic despite the fact that Glass said he consistently ranked at or near the top of the team in both on-ice and off-ice conditioning.

Eventually, Parker told Glass he did not want him on the team any more.

“I couldn’t believe his decision,” Glass said. “In over two weeks, I had not sat down with him once to talk about what had transpired and the decision of my suspension. The first time we actually had a conversation was when my father was present to basically tell me I was being dismissed from the team.

“I am very upset at how everything has ultimately played out. I accept my responsibility for being late for the two meetings. I got suspended without a warning or even a conversation for being in the library studying. And ultimately, had barely five minutes of contact with Coach Parker throughout the whole process until it ended with my expulsion from the team.”

Parker had no comment for this story other than to reiterate what has already been reported.

“We removed him from the team because he couldn’t live up to team rules,” Parker said.

Glass said his dismissal is unrelated to his one-game suspension for last year’s season-opener. He said that suspension was for getting written up for drinking in his room on a Saturday night. He said Parker told him at the time that he thought it was ridiculous, but that he had to bench him for a game anyway.

Glass said he will remain at BU for this semester and take some classes over the summer to graduate early. He said he plans on continuing his hockey career next season, but that he is not sure where he will play.