Less than a week after being hired by Bay FC, Graeme Abel on Wednesday resigned from his post as the team’s director of domestic scouting.
The club came under fire for hiring Abel, who left his job as Oregon’s head coach last fall, months after The Oregonian reported more than a dozen Ducks players had alleged Abel verbally abused them.
Abel, who prior to working at Oregon was an assistant for the U.S. women’s national team, said in a team statement that his hiring had “become a distraction which is not fair to the team and players, so I have made the difficult decision to resign.”
The allegations at Oregon included berating players during practices and after games, and throwing and kicking objects during locker-room tirades.
“He kicked all of our staff out of the locker room, kicked a trash can, threw a white board, sat on the trash can and started screaming,” one player told The Oregonian. Other instances reportedly included throwing a water bottle that narrowly missed two players’ heads, and stopping practice to denigrate players.
The university told The Oregonian that a postseason review of the soccer program, prodded by player complaints, did not find evidence of verbal abuse, and that many of the allegations revealed by the newspaper were not disclosed at that time.
Abel himself denied the allegations and continued as Oregon’s coach last fall, eventually resigning in October, late in a season the Ducks finished 5-11-2. The prior season, they went 0-16-3, and 12 of the 29 players on that team transferred out, according to The Oregonian.
Bay FC sporting director Matt Potter, who had Abel on his staff as a coach at Washington State and Oklahoma, initially defended the decision last week and signaled to reporters that he had “stepped aside” in the hiring process although the scouting department falls under his purview. A statement from him Wednesday did not acknowledge the reason for Abel’s resignation, only thanking the scout for “his willingness to step aside so we can focus on football.”
A team source confirmed Wednesday that the scouting director job is a “Tier II” position that does not include daily interaction with Bay players and requires a background check. The team was aware of the allegations about Abel’s behavior at Oregon during the hiring process.
Abel’s hiring and resignation continue a rocky preseason for Bay after starting goalkeeper Katelyn Rowland retired abruptly earlier this month during training camp in Southern California. The club’s first regular-season game is March 15 at Utah.