Coaching with kin is not frowned upon at FIU and The Beacon doesn’t think so either.
FIU has a pair of parent and child coaching tandems in football and sand volleyball.
Head Football Coach Ron Turner has recruited his sons Cameron and Morgan to help coach his offense. Head Sand Volleyball Coach Rita Buck-Crockett hired her daughter Marrita as the assistant coach.
Both Turner and Crockett have much to prove this upcoming season entering a new conference as recently hired coaches.
A coach entering a new position would want assistants they can trust. Why not hire your children if they are qualified? Cameron and Morgan Turner have the credentials to coach under their father.
Cameron Turner served as liaison for the coaching department to all departments of the Minnesota Vikings and NFL Officials. He coordinated schedules and team travel itineraries, according to fiusports.com. Cameron also managed and formulated the coaching budget. From a business administration standpoint, Coach Turner could use his son for business and budgeting.
As a former player, Cameron Turner attended The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, where he was a quarterback and wide receiver for the Bulldogs from 2006-09. Later after he graduated, he recruited and coached for the team.
Morgan Turner served as offensive assistant for the Stanford Cardinals last season, where the Cardinals outscored their opponents 390-241. He is also a strength and conditioning intern in the 2010 season.
Ron Turner said it was no walk in the park to get his sons to coach for him, according to an interview with sports writer Jonathan Jacobsin. “They both had great jobs where they were,” Turner said. “I had to fight to get them.”
The Turner sons bring an illustrious early success to their father’s offensive game plan, as well as providing sound business insight as well as strength and conditioning technique.
It is difficult to out-joust Rita Buck-Crockett’s credentials as a volleyball Zen. She was a world beach champion for the WPVA (Women’s Professional Volleyball Association) Tour, partnering with the first-ever Olympic Gold medalist Jackie Silva in 1989, and finishing as runner-up in 1990. She also played several successful seasons on the AVP professional beach circuit, according to fiusports.com. She also won the 1984 silver Olympic medal in volleyball.
For such a profound coach to hire her daughter must really speak loudly as to what Marrita can bring to the table. Neither of the two were available for comment, due to the deadline.
Marrita Royster-Crockett comes to FIU from Hawaii Pacific University, where she served as a graduate assistant coach in 2011. She also was the interim head coach at Lincoln High School in Tallahassee that year, and had previously coached in the high school ranks as an assistant at Maclay, where she led her squad to a Final Four State Championship in 2010, according to fisports.com.
Marrita was also ranked 21 in the nation in kills per set at her tenure with the FAMU Rattlers volleyball team.
Both Rita and her daughter Marrita have knowledge and experience in the sport.
Can these coaches and their children make successful coaching staffs that will translate into wins?
Some assume that it is difficult to be creative and make good decisions when emotion is involved, especially mixing family with business. However, emotion takes a major role in sports, such as not making the most logical decision at times and going with your gut instinct as a coach.
There are currently successful tandems in professional sports such as Washington Redskins coach Mike Shanahan and his son Kyle, who ran one of the most prolific offenses last season in the NFL.
FIU has a document called the nepotism disclosure form that the human resources department usually has every family and marital relationship fill out that is employed at the University. It states that it is the policy of FIU not to discriminate in its employment and personnel actions with respect to its employees and applicants on the basis of marital or familial status.
As of press time, sports information was not able to answer whether athletics personnel have to fill out nepotism forms. Cameron and Morgan Turner were most likely required to fill out the form, since they were officially hired by the FIU, but Marrita Royster-Crockett is a volunteer assistant.
FIU should continue to let coaches hire their kin, especially if the tandems end up turning out successfully. With the pressure on college coaches to perform early in their tenures at their schools, Turner and Crockett have to make valuable assets of their children in having winning seasons.
The Beacon feels coaching with kin is certainly acceptable, especially with the credentials and knowledge that Cameron and Morgan Turner as well as Marrita Royster-Crockett have of their sports.
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