Savannah State University Responds to Robby Wells' Resignation Letter

Former Savannah State University football coach Robby Wells has broken his silence regarding his departure from the Tigers football program. Wells' official resignation letter was sent to University administrators Thursday afternoon from his legal team's office in Atlanta.

CLICK ON THE VIDEO LINK TO SEE THE FULL STORY. (NOTE: WSAV DID NOT RECEIVE THE SSU STATEMENT PRIOR TO THIS BROADCAST VIDEO.)

Here is the statement from Savannah State released Thursday at 7:50 p.m. regarding Wells' resignation.

Feb. 11, 2010

Statement on Robby Wells’ February 11, 2010, Resignation Letter

Robby Wells has submitted his letter of resignation to Savannah State University. Wells’ resignation has been accepted and he will be assigned to other duties within the University until March 31, 2010.

As mandated by the University System of Georgia, Coach Wells was given the opportunity to address all of his concerns with SSU President Earl G. Yarbrough Sr. He specifically declined to do so. Coach Wells’ decision to go public with this instead of directing them to the University through proper channels is truly unfortunate.

While the accusations in Wells’ resignation letter are troubling, SSU remains a diverse institution that affords equal employment opportunities to everyone in all instances specifically including this one.

Savannah State has a strong commitment to diversity, particularly in its hiring practices. Furthermore, President Yarbrough has three diversity goals that he previously submitted to the University System of Georgia:

1) To hire an equity and diversity coordinator; a position that was filled as of February 1.

2) Increased and targeted diversity training on campus.

3) To annually recruit a greater percentage of non-minority students.

NOTE : NCAA Regulations specifically prohibit public discussion of prospective, current or previously recruited student athletes

Below is the resignation letter from Robby Wells:

MEMORANDUM
To: Ms. Suggs, Interim Athletic Director
cc: Dr. Claud Flythe, V.P.; Dr. Earl Yarborough, Sr. and Chancellor Davis
From: Robby Wells
Date: February 11, 2010

This memo is written as a follow-up to our meetings on January 19, 2010 and January
28, 2010, and pursuant to your verbal instructions of yesterday to write a resignation
letter in order to keep my pay and benefits through March 2010, as we agreed on
January 28th.

When you and Dr. Flythe unexpectedly called me in off the road from recruiting and we
met on January 19, 2010, and Dr. Flythe stated to me that I would never have the
support of the SSU alumni or reach those individuals because I am White, and that I
would never have the support of the citizens of Savannah, because I am White and my
fiancé is Black, I knew you had already made a decision about my future at SSU. That
evening, I was unable to sleep and was physically ill.

Thus, when you called me in off the road again on January 28, 2010 and told me I had
the choice of being terminated immediately, in which case my pay and benefits would
cease that day and I would receive a poor recommendation when attempting to find
another coaching position, or that I could resign effective immediately, and receive pay
and benefits through the end of March 2010 and get a positive reference, I felt that I
had no choice but to resign. So, on January 28th I tendered my forced resignation. I
agreed to tell everyone that I resigned voluntarily, in order to be professional, and to
protect the football team members, the recruits, who were less than a week away from
National Signing day, and SSU from any harm or embarrassment.

At the time, however, I had no idea that you, Dr. Flythe and Coach Julius Dixon would
engage in the outrageous conduct that has occurred with regard to the players that I
and the other coaches recruited over the last several months. To make matters worse,
the decision of SSU to attempt to blame me for its refusal to sign the 5 White players I
had recruited and who had received verbal offers from the school by stating I was not
supposed to be recruiting outside of Georgia, is not only false, it is appalling. Now that
you have discriminated against these White students and have slandered my name, I
feel that I have to give up my oath of silence about the fact that I was terminated.

You know as well as I do that there was never any directive from anyone at any time to
only recruit in state players. On the contrary, we were told to go out and recruit the best
possible players for the school and that is exactly what I and my coaching staff did.
Thus, if you check the schools records where the coaches submit their travel receipts
for reimbursement, you will see that Coach John Montgomery traveled to Florida, both
with me and on his own. He went with me twice to recruit ceedric Davis from
Jacksonville. Coach Barry Casterlin traveled extensively throughout the Northeast and
Canada attempting to recruit players. Coach Hans Batichon also recruited out of state
in Miami. Recruiting out of state was done with the Administration’s full knowledge,
consent and encouragement.

The money was available to recruit up to 25 football players. I was told that I had 44
scholarships available to distribute and I had planned to sign these additional players.
The assertion that the White students to whom SSU had committed should never have
been recruited or promised anything because they were out of state is not true. One of
the guys who I had committed to, who was not given an offer, was a player out of
Morrow, GA. He happened to be White. One of the players that was made an offer on
National Signing Day was from the Tampa area. Although Coach Dixon has stated that
his legal residence is Georgia, the fact is he had been living in Tampa and playing
football for Robinson High School near Tampa for nearly two years and was recruited
solely in Florida. This young man is Black.

During neither of our meetings in January did you mention that I had done anything
improper with regard to recruiting out of state. This is an ad-hoc justification that you
and the administration have created after the media picked up the story about not
offering White recruits a spot on the team. I feel I need to be on record saying that I
would never have recruited and then offered a spot to a student to play football for me if
I’d not had authority to do so. At the time of my forced resignation on January 28th, I
wondered about the weird timing - right before signing day. I now understand
completely that the Administration needed to get the White Coach out of the way in
order to drop all the White recruits.

My staff and I were in the process of building a winning program at Savannah State. I
regret that I will not be able to continue to turn the program around or work with the fine
young men on the team. However, I have to say that if Savannah State University
administrators want to make decisions about who its coaches will be and who its
players will be based on race, then I am very glad that I am no longer associated with
this administration.

Please accept this letter as my official resignation.