While the college football world obsesses over trivial matters such as satellite camps and Jim Harbaugh vs. The Universe mindless spitball wars, something far significant was addressed and quickly dismissed at the SEC’s spring meetings this past week.
Culpability.
The topic was Baylor — specifically the fallout of sexual-assault and domestic-violence cases involving football players who had been brought in by coach Art Briles. To its credit, Baylor did something rare for a university that has generated millions of dollars from an athletic program: It fired highly successful coach who had taken over what was a barren wasteland of a program — not for NCAA violations but for the transgressions of his players and a possible university-wide cover-up.
In short, Baylor found its moral compass, firing Briles, removing school president Ken Starr and reprimanding athletic director Ian McCaw, who subsequently resigned. But unless Briles is found to have committed an NCAA violation, which could lead to a show-cause penalty, nothing prevents him from getting another job. Odds are he would because college presidents frequently give lip service to their academic mission and serving students, but then contradict themselves with decisions pertaining to football and basketball programs.
The SEC passed a rule last year preventing member schools from accepting transfers with a history of sexual assault or domestic violence (a rule introduced by Georgia after it kicked out football player Jonathan Taylor, only to see him later enroll at Alabama with Nick Saban's blessing … only to see him arrested and kicked out again).
If a coach is arrested for domestic violence, presumably he would be held to the same standard. But what about a coach who’s found culpable for player issues at another school, as seems to be the case with Briles?
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey this week twice dismissed questions about Baylor and said, “I’m not going to speculate” when asked if Briles would be welcomed by the conference.
This is a bad look.
“It makes sense that if you have a coach found responsible for what’s going on in his last job, that person shouldn’t be allowed to just go to another university,” said Colorado attorney John Clune, who has represented several women who’ve brought sexual-assault and domestic-violence charges, as well as Title IX lawsuits. “If I were the parent of a young woman who was sexually assaulted by a player and later learned the coach who was responsible for the program knew about it … I’d be furious.”
Clune represented women in sexual-assault allegations against Kobe Bryant and Jameis Winston, as well and now is in the middle of pending litigation in the Baylor case.
He represents a woman who was assaulted by former Baylor player Sam Ukwuachu, who was convicted of sexual assault. The woman’s claims were ignored by school officials, and administrators also declined to move Ukwuachu out of a class and tutoring session he had with her, instead asking her to change her schedule. Her scholarship was reduced, and she eventually transferred.
But bringing in players such as Ukwuachu, who had domestic-violence issues at Boise State, or being slow to investigate new issues, are symptoms of bigger problems.
“Administrations have to stop giving coaches so much autonomy,” he said. “Coaches are the most powerful person at the school. They’re often the highest paid employee in the state. It incentivizes winning to that point that coaches might not want to report an incident of abuse.”
Saban vented about satellite football camps recently, and then segued into the need for a college football commissioner. He’s wrong about the camps, but right about the need for more structure and a commissioner, particularly among Power Five conferences.
But this might be an Over The Rainbow wish. Power Five programs can't even get on the same page about relatively minor issues like camps. How are they going to agree on recruiting regulations, discipline issues, academic standards, transfer rules, player-safety rules, athlete stipends and, yes, drug testing (where policies vary widely from school to school)?
Saban defended accepting Taylor as a transfer despite his arrest for assaulting his girlfriend while at Georgia. Taylor was in Tuscaloosa less than three months before being arrested again for alleged assault, and was dismissed from Alabama.
“I’m not sorry for giving him an opportunity,” Saban said then. “I’m sorry for the way things worked out.”
He doesn’t make my commissioner short list.
It’s difficult to step back and realize in the wake of the Baylor story, but powerful athletic programs generally can’t operate in the secrecy it used to in today’s world. A school president, athletic director and coached being forced out before details of an investigation have even surfaced never would have happened years ago.
But so much more progress needs to be made. The SEC plans to expand its rules on transfers with a criminal past. Other conferences should follow. But coaches also should be held responsible if it’s shown that they covered up crimes or enabled bad behavior. That wouldn’t make them responsible for the actions of others. It makes them responsible for how they responded to those actions.
We know Briles took transfers who had issues elsewhere. If he indeed looked the other way on assaults in Waco, he should never work in college football again.
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