Seems like everyone is recording conversations these days. Warriors assistant coach Darren Erman was fired a few weeks back, with the team citing a “violation of company policy” as the reason—per ESPN, the specific violation was that he was weirdly taping conversations he was having with other coaches:
When Golden State Warriors assistant coach Darren Erman was fired earlier this month, the reason given was a “violation of company policy.”
It turns out that Erman’s violation was secretly recording conversations between the team’s coaches and players, according to sources with knowledge of the situation.
Sources said Erman, who was coach Mark Jackson’s second assistant, would record coaches’ meetings, meetings between the coaches and players, and informal discussions among coaches that took place in the team’s coaches room — all without the participants’ knowledge.
“He was taping everything,” one source said. “Taping pregame speeches wouldn’t have been that bad, but he was taping guys just sitting around talking in the coaches’ office.”
Sometimes Erman would be present during the tapings. Other times, he would leave the room and leave his phone behind to record conversations the other coaches were having.
It is unclear what Erman did with the recordings. The sources weren’t sure whether he shared them with the club’s owners or front-office executives.
“Was he taping it for himself or was he taping it for management? That’s not known,” a source said. “But he had a lot of communication with members of the front office.”
The Warriors’ other coaches began noticing a change in Erman’s demeanor and behavior in March, a source said. A few weeks later, they discovered that he was recording them. After being caught, Erman told the club he had been recording the conversations for three weeks. Jackson kept Erman on his staff for another week before Warriors’ management fired him on April 5.
