The abrupt firing of Navy’s all-time winningest coach, Ken Niumatalolo, has some fans petitioning for other changes in the school’s athletic department.
A petition on Change.org is calling for Navy athletic director Chet Gladchuk, who has been in that position since 2001, to also be fired.
It also calls for Niumatalolo — who coached the team for 15 seasons — to be reinstated as the program’s football coach.
Niumatalolo told ESPN that he was fired by Gladchuk in the locker room after the Midshipmen’s double-overtime loss to Army last Saturday.
What does the petition to fire Chet Gladchuk say?
As of Thursday morning, the petition had more than 1,400 signatures.
It reads:
The handling of the firing of Coach Ken Niumatalolo by the Naval Academy Athletic Association has been unanimously received by fans, donors, alumni, former players and former staff as unequivocally inappropriate and not in keeping with the long standing traditions of the storied Naval Academy Football program.
It was not in the best interest of the program, the players, or that of the Academy as an institution, and was a culminating mishandling in a series of outlandish, inappropriate and uncalled for decisions that have been made by the association’s director, Chet Gladchuk. This petition calls to the immediate removal of Mr. Gladchuk as the Naval Academy’s Athletic Director, an immediate investigative audit to be conducted into the NAAA’s proceedings, and most importantly, the immediate reinstatement of Ken Niumatalolo as the Head Coach of the Naval Academy Football Program.
Why was Ken Niumatalolo fired?
Gladchuk told ESPN that Niumatalolo’s dismissal came down to the program’s struggles in recent years to accomplish its stated goals: win the Commander-In-Chief’s Trophy and to become bowl eligible.
Navy had gone 2-5 against both Army and Air Force in recent years and hadn’t won the Commander-In-Chief’s Trophy outright since 2019.
The Midshipmen have also missed bowl eligibility four of the past five seasons.
“This didn’t come down to a fumble, or even a lost game on Saturday,” Gladchuk told ESPN. “These goals and expectations have been set for years. ... I think about our corporate relationships. I think about our television exposures. I think about our responsibility to the conference, our alumni.”
Despite the recent struggles, the 57-year-old Niumatalolo went 109-83 as Navy’s coach since taking over for Paul Johnson in December 2007.
Navy won the Commander-In-Chief’s Trophy outright four times in his tenure (2007, 2009, 2013, 2019) and had a 6-5 record in bowl games, while also finishing two seasons ranked in The Associated Press Top 25 (2015, 2019).
Niumatalolo, who interviewed for the BYU head coaching job in 2015 before choosing to stay at Navy, said he asked to finish out the final year of his contract.
“And if we lose next year,” he told ESPN, “don’t worry about firing me. I’ll resign. You don’t have to pay me a cent. I’m not looking for a raise, I’m not looking for anything. I just want to finish my contract. We’re finally coming out of the pandemic. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed. I thought we stood for something different.”