Juggling the demands of a graduate school accounting major and a newborn child is no easy task, let alone for a college athlete who is also training for his final season.
Those demands eventually caught up to Patrick Savage, who decided to quit the team in February after four years with the Auburn baseball program.
The departure, according to Savage, was smooth and respectful on both sides.
"(Auburn head coach Sunny Golloway) was completely okay with my decision and respected it and was fine with me parting ways," Savage said. "You can ask any coach that was in that room. I shook their hand, looked them in the eye and they told me I was welcome back, then that was it."
But Savage wasn't the only player to have a meeting with Golloway.
According to former pitcher Jay Wade, a number of players, including Chase Williamson and Hunter Kelley, were called in for meetings with the coaching staff after a 3-2 loss to East Tennessee State.
"It was kind of cloudy because we didn't really find out what was said," Wade said. "Several players were called in for meetings, and some players decided that was where they wanted to draw the line and stop playing. One was released by a coaching decision."
In the end, Kelley was dismissed from the team. Williamson, like Savage, decided to leave of his own accord.
Golloway hinted at roster minimization after a previous loss to California, but the first-year head coach got straight to the point with the media after the extra innings loss to ETSU.
"If we're going to end up having some cancer in our clubhouse, we're going to end up having to cut that out and move forward," Golloway said.
Media reports on the departures quoted Golloway blaming attitude and effort as the reason for the minimization, which Savage said was false and misleading.
"To hear that in the media just blew my mind," Savage said. "I don't know if it was a cop out or what, but you can ask any of the kids in the locker room. I was a part of this program for a long time and for him to go out and say that, whether or not it was directed at the person he dismissed directly, it seemed like I was grouped in that group."
Golloway declined to talk to The Plainsman about the situation.
Though Savage was not recruited to Auburn by Golloway, the Suwannee, Georgia native said he never had an issue with the new coach's stricter program.
Instead, Savage said he took issue with the way Golloway handled player issues in the media, citing the 'cancer' quote and the general 'airing of dirty laundry' as prime concerns.
"He definitely used what had happened with the one player, who was technically dismissed, and then lumped the other players together into it to make it sound like there was a ton of bad things going on that I and many other people didn't see going on," Savage said. "That's not how my meeting with him went and you can ask every coach who was there that it never went that way."
Savage, who was Auburn's 2014 recipient of the Brad Davis SEC Community Service Award, said media reports tying him to player dismissals have created problems as he seeks employment.
"It makes me look bad because, for a future employer to type my name in online and it come up with 'Auburn baseball, three players no longer with the team,' then I have to tell them that that's not how it went," Savage said. "It's entirely false how it was portrayed and the fact that he was able make it into sounding like I had done something wrong really upset me."
Now graduated with his CPA license and looking to settle down with his wife and child, Savage said he hopes to put to bed rumors that his dismissal was due to internal conflicts with the coaching staff.
"It was more of a personal decision than anything, it wasn't like I was clashing or anything," Savage said. "I was overwhelmed with stuff on my plate and the fact that he made it out to seem like us three were a problem was ridiculous."
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