Despite the governor’s mandate, WSU football coach Nick Rolovich isn’t vaccinated.
WSU President Kirk Schulz (photo below) admitted it during a faculty meeting, a Spokane TV station reported on Friday, September 24, 2021, noting that Gov. Inslee has mandated that “all state workers, including teachers and coaches, get vaccinated or lose their jobs” (read story here).
In the meeting, a faculty member “asked Schulz about what the school is doing to combat negative press coverage of the school that relates to Governor Jay Inslee’s vaccine mandate.” The TV station said, “Schulz started off by talking about student and faculty vaccination rates being at around 95% but then he addresses the news coverage of Rolovich’s vaccination status.”
And what did he say?
“The major elephant in the room that has gotten the Seattle Times all excited is one individual who is in a very prominent position, that up until this day has not been vaccinated and has not talked to the media much about where that is,” Schulz said. Then he referred to “the angst that’s out there over Coach Rolovich’s decision.” Schulz apparently has some angst, too, because he “went on to say some of the news coverage has led to ‘multiple martini nights’ but he didn’t want to minimize the issue.”
It’s not clear, though, whether his angst is over Rolovich’s defiance, or the news coverage of his defiance, but it seems clear it’s not Rolovich but the Seattle Times who’s driving him to the bottle.
WSU President Kirk Schulz
And when pressed about whether he’ll fire Rolovich if he doesn’t comply with the governor’s mandate, instead of answering the question, he danced around it and then went back to talking up what a great job “the community” is doing with getting vaccinated and he wishes the media wouldn’t focus on Rolovich so much. Whatever he’s drinking, I want some, too.
Schulz is between a rock and a hard place. He’s damned if he does fire the football coach (even though he’s 1-2 so far this year), and damned if he doesn’t comply with the governor.
So here’s an idea. Let Rolovich keep losing games, but quit paying his salary until he either by gets vaccinated or gets an approved exemption. That should make everybody happy. Well, not everybody. But it’ll make opposing teams happy.