On Sunday night, we released to you several emails obtained though a FOIA request to Texas A&M to show you the raw thoughts of Texas A&M's Athletic Department on the University of Texas' Longhorn Network, what was believed to be the agreement of 3rd tier rights between the Big 12 and other member institutions, and how much of a perceived role the athletic department played during conference realignment.
One of the emails we showed you was a response from Jeffrey Toole, Senior Associate Athletic Director and Aggie Athletic CFO, to A&M Athletic Director Bill Byrne in which Byrne forwards an email he received from what we believe to be a fan/booster with the title "RE: What is going on.....". As we mentioned on Sunday night, during the time of this email Byrne was traveling with the A&M Men's Basketball Team in Switzerland as they played several European national teams and appeared to be out of the loop of what was occurring back in Aggieland involving Texas A&M's possible conference affiliation. The email we released is below:
When we released this email, we didn't think much of it other than to show you an example of how much confusion there was within Texas A&M's own athletic department at the time, just like there was on message boards and in social media between Texas A&M fans. It's purpose was also to show you just how dependent the athletic department was on information form outside sources.
After releasing our documents, several comments were made to us that this appeared to be the most "disturbing" email of the bunch as someone within the athletic department was referring to either website moderators (which we believe in fact to be the case) or even A&M message board posters/fans as "knuckleheads". Could this really be what A&M athletic department administration think of supporters, boosters, and/or possible season ticket purchasers? Again, we played that notion off as simple, lighthearted commentary between closely associated parties.
However on Monday night, drama continued to play out on an A&M fan website/message board TexAgs.com, when several posters contended that the poster under the username "UtayAg" was in fact Mr. Toole, the subject of our released controversial email. Posters then brought up several of Mr. Toole's previous conversations under the anonymous username where he discredits current Texas A&M University President R. Bowen Loftin referring to Dr. Loftin as a "puppet" and proceeds to call him names such as a "putz". Texas A&M beat reporter Brent Zwerneman of the San Antonio Express-News reported on the story earlier today. In this post, "UtayAg" claims he is the CFO of the athletic department on May 11th, 2010: (Note: the red box has been added to highlight his claim)
Here is the exchange Mr. Toole had with a poster BQ07MM where he claims Dr. Loftin is a "puppet" and a "putz":
The Midnight Yell tonight has found several more posts by Mr. Toole from TexAgs.com. In this thread started by "SpreadsheetAg", the original poster asks if he should email Dr. Loftin or Bill Byrne to suggest changes to the gameday environment of Kyle Field: (Note: other posts in these threads have been cut out to conserve space for your reading)
Here, the same poster "SpreadsheetAg" starts a thread on Dr. Loftin's suggested performance during Texas A&M's conference realignment:
Finally, we have learned that it is highly possible TexAgs.com was not the only Aggie related website Mr. Toole visited, created an alias known as "UtayAg", and posted on. Here is a thread from Agtimes.com in which "djsaggie" states his opinion on the performance of Texas A&M head football coach Mike Sherman. Although it is unverified Mr. Toole is posting under this same username on this website as well, here is the response.
Notice it says "UtayAg" joined in November of 2002 and is located in Houston, Texas. Before his current employment with the Texas A&M Athletic Department, Mr. Toole was a managing partner at Rice Sangalis Toole & Wilson based in Houston.
What might be even more disturbing than his remarks to A&M fans/boosters is that after Brent Zwerneman published his story, Mr. Toole continued to post on TexAgs.com under the same alias for a short period. Here are his posts from this afternoon.
We hope these views did not affect your work Mr. Toole. We have documented evidence that says Mr. Toole was in direct contact with Dr. Loftin through email during conference realignment that provided critical data to possible conference affiliation.
Back to our original story, his "knucklehead" email. Here is the full email between Mr. Toole, Bill Byrne, and Penny King (Deputy Director of Aggie Athletics) titled "RE: What is going on.....":
The reason we want to show you this in full is for a couple of reasons:
1) It appears Mr. Toole was the only one in the athletic department "inner circle" who frequented such A&M message board sites. Notice Mrs. King made the comment she can not access the content because it's a "private page".
2) If in fact Mr. Toole was the only one in the athletic department who accessed such content and then forwarded it or discussed it with Bill Byrne, what kind of perception was he giving Byrne on the current situation unfolding, or even worse yet, the current viewpoint of Texas A&M Athletic fans/boosters on not just conference realignment, but all subject matters?
In his duties, Jeffrey Toole shouldn't have posted such negative comments about the current Texas A&M president, or any such employee of Texas A&M for that matter. While as a former student of Texas A&M and athletic booster, he is certainly entitled to his opinions and his first amendment rights of free speech. But not to that degree without casting a black eye not only on his employer but the entire Texas A&M University Network and Family.
The question still remains what role did such message board discussions and viewpoints by Mr. Toole have on internal athletic department conversation and decisions, if any at all? And if certain members of the Texas A&M athletic department share the same outlook as Mr. Toole on Dr. Loftin and other Texas A&M employees, what does that say about current divisions between the two sides? In any case, differences and divisions between the two parties need to come to an end and work towards the same goal of Building Champions at Texas A&M through the betterment of student-athletes and satisfying the fans/ boosters who they in fact serve, not to ridicule in such a public display.
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