primal defense
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Good article.
Briles likely will survive, but the next guilty coach won't
Art Briles likely will keep his job as the Baylor football coach, despite the Sam Ukwuachu scandal that in some ways trumps the Dave Bliss shame of a dozen years ago.
Bliss conspired to besmirch the name of a dead man, which is reprehensible. Briles brought a menace to campus, and an 18-year-old soccer player paid a horrific price, the victim of a sexual assault, and even if Briles did so unwittingly, he didn’t seem to care after the discovery.
Bliss didn’t survive, but Briles probably will. Too much euphoria over Baylor football’s meteoric rise. Too many financial considerations. Too much he said/he said with Chris Petersen, far removed in the Pacific Northwest. Too many co-conspirators in Waco for Briles to be the fall guy.
But even so, Sam Ukwuachu changes the college football landscape. If Briles survives, he will have burned the bridge behind him.
Ukwuachu is college football’s Ray Rice. The line has been drawn. America has spoken and will keep speaking. Enough is enough. No more looking away when NFL players beat the brains out of someone they say they love. No more free passes for coaches who offer scholarship and status to players with peccable records but who can tackle with gusto and run like the wind. No more free rein for coaches to tell us they’ve done their own wink-wink investigations into questionable characters.
Absolute accountability started about five minutes after we all learned the name Ukwuachu.
Briles looks bad, looks real bad, and that’s not even assuming Petersen is telling the truth. Briles said Petersen, then at Boise State and now at Washington, revealed nothing about Ukwuachu’s domestic violence issue while they discussed a transfer. When Petersen countered and said hold on, Briles retreated and said there was some mention about a “rocky relationship.â€
Whatever. Most people believe Petersen, because he’s got less reason to lie, which is valid, and because Briles seems much more snide, which is not valid. Some snakes are in the grass, remember.
What Briles knew when he brought in Ukwuachu is not as damning as what Briles knew after he brought in Ukwuachu. The victim went to police on Oct. 20, 2013, alleging she was raped by Ukwuachu. He was indicted in June 2014, and trial began last week. Yet as recently as this summer, Baylor defensive coordinator Phil Bennett said he expected Ukwuachu to take the field for the Bears this summer.
Maybe you can have that kind of hubris when you’re in a city in which news of Ukwuachu’s indictment never became public. In Norman or Stillwater, a football player gets a speeding ticket and it goes state-wide before noon the next day.
Maybe you can have that kind of hubris at a university that conducted its own investigation and arrived at no disciplinary action against Ukwuachu. It’s the anti-Frank Shannon case. The OU linebacker was accused of sexual assault; legal authorities declined to press charges, but the university staged its own Title IX investigation and found Shannon likely culpable and suspended him from school for a year.
That’s why Briles might not even be the guiltiest collaborator in Waco. Who was conducting that probe? Who determined that Ukwuachu should not be disciplined, while a jury of 12, with a much stiffer threshold of proof, found him guilty, and a judge ordered him to jail?
That might be what saves everyone in Waco. Maybe everyone’s guilty. You can’t clean the entire house. Briles, at least, is paid to win football games and does exactly that. Others are charged with shepherding the university. Who was on that duty while Sam Ukwuachu roamed free?
But let’s not pretend that Bob Stoops and Mike Gundy haven’t brought in questionable recruits themselves.
Gundy recruited, and played, Texarkana, Texas, linebacker Chris Collins while he was under indictment on charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child, then dismissed Collins when he pleaded guilty during the 2007 season.
Stoops brought in Las Vegas defensive end Justin Chaisson after he was charged with multiple felonies stemming from an incident with an ex-girlfriend that included putting a screwdriver to her neck and threatening to kill her. Chaisson left OU after one season.
Heck, the Ukwuachu case is remarkably similar, to a point, with the Dorial Green-Beckham situation. DGB was a Missouri receiving star who was accused of domestic violence and eventually dismissed from the Mizzou team. Green-Beckham sought to transfer to OU, and Stoops brought him in. Even petitioned the NCAA to make DGB eligible immediately, same as Baylor did when Ukwuachu transferred from Boise State.
Green-Beckham declared for the NFL Draft in January, without ever playing for OU, and by all accounts minded his manners while in Norman. But had DGB committed another violent act, Stoops would have had little defense.
DGB came to Norman before the Ray Rice video surfaced. The image of the Baltimore Ravens tailback slugging and his dragging his then-fiancé was the line of demarcation. NFL teams no longer sign domestic abusers without a second thought. Some still do it, but there is a price to pay.
Now after Ray Rice and Sam Ukwuachu, can you imagine a coach asking a president for some latitude on a recruit or a transfer of ill-repute? Can you imagine Stoops today asking David Boren for permission to bring in Dorial Green-Beckham?
The answer wouldn’t be just no.
Ukwuachu will sober up many an administrator and coach. So in a way, Art Briles has helped make college campuses safer. At the expense of his own.
http://newsok.com/briles-likely-will-survive-but-the-next-guilty-coach-wont/article/5441922/?page=2
Briles likely will survive, but the next guilty coach won't
Art Briles likely will keep his job as the Baylor football coach, despite the Sam Ukwuachu scandal that in some ways trumps the Dave Bliss shame of a dozen years ago.
Bliss conspired to besmirch the name of a dead man, which is reprehensible. Briles brought a menace to campus, and an 18-year-old soccer player paid a horrific price, the victim of a sexual assault, and even if Briles did so unwittingly, he didn’t seem to care after the discovery.
Bliss didn’t survive, but Briles probably will. Too much euphoria over Baylor football’s meteoric rise. Too many financial considerations. Too much he said/he said with Chris Petersen, far removed in the Pacific Northwest. Too many co-conspirators in Waco for Briles to be the fall guy.
But even so, Sam Ukwuachu changes the college football landscape. If Briles survives, he will have burned the bridge behind him.
Ukwuachu is college football’s Ray Rice. The line has been drawn. America has spoken and will keep speaking. Enough is enough. No more looking away when NFL players beat the brains out of someone they say they love. No more free passes for coaches who offer scholarship and status to players with peccable records but who can tackle with gusto and run like the wind. No more free rein for coaches to tell us they’ve done their own wink-wink investigations into questionable characters.
Absolute accountability started about five minutes after we all learned the name Ukwuachu.
Briles looks bad, looks real bad, and that’s not even assuming Petersen is telling the truth. Briles said Petersen, then at Boise State and now at Washington, revealed nothing about Ukwuachu’s domestic violence issue while they discussed a transfer. When Petersen countered and said hold on, Briles retreated and said there was some mention about a “rocky relationship.â€
Whatever. Most people believe Petersen, because he’s got less reason to lie, which is valid, and because Briles seems much more snide, which is not valid. Some snakes are in the grass, remember.
What Briles knew when he brought in Ukwuachu is not as damning as what Briles knew after he brought in Ukwuachu. The victim went to police on Oct. 20, 2013, alleging she was raped by Ukwuachu. He was indicted in June 2014, and trial began last week. Yet as recently as this summer, Baylor defensive coordinator Phil Bennett said he expected Ukwuachu to take the field for the Bears this summer.
Maybe you can have that kind of hubris when you’re in a city in which news of Ukwuachu’s indictment never became public. In Norman or Stillwater, a football player gets a speeding ticket and it goes state-wide before noon the next day.
Maybe you can have that kind of hubris at a university that conducted its own investigation and arrived at no disciplinary action against Ukwuachu. It’s the anti-Frank Shannon case. The OU linebacker was accused of sexual assault; legal authorities declined to press charges, but the university staged its own Title IX investigation and found Shannon likely culpable and suspended him from school for a year.
That’s why Briles might not even be the guiltiest collaborator in Waco. Who was conducting that probe? Who determined that Ukwuachu should not be disciplined, while a jury of 12, with a much stiffer threshold of proof, found him guilty, and a judge ordered him to jail?
That might be what saves everyone in Waco. Maybe everyone’s guilty. You can’t clean the entire house. Briles, at least, is paid to win football games and does exactly that. Others are charged with shepherding the university. Who was on that duty while Sam Ukwuachu roamed free?
But let’s not pretend that Bob Stoops and Mike Gundy haven’t brought in questionable recruits themselves.
Gundy recruited, and played, Texarkana, Texas, linebacker Chris Collins while he was under indictment on charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child, then dismissed Collins when he pleaded guilty during the 2007 season.
Stoops brought in Las Vegas defensive end Justin Chaisson after he was charged with multiple felonies stemming from an incident with an ex-girlfriend that included putting a screwdriver to her neck and threatening to kill her. Chaisson left OU after one season.
Heck, the Ukwuachu case is remarkably similar, to a point, with the Dorial Green-Beckham situation. DGB was a Missouri receiving star who was accused of domestic violence and eventually dismissed from the Mizzou team. Green-Beckham sought to transfer to OU, and Stoops brought him in. Even petitioned the NCAA to make DGB eligible immediately, same as Baylor did when Ukwuachu transferred from Boise State.
Green-Beckham declared for the NFL Draft in January, without ever playing for OU, and by all accounts minded his manners while in Norman. But had DGB committed another violent act, Stoops would have had little defense.
DGB came to Norman before the Ray Rice video surfaced. The image of the Baltimore Ravens tailback slugging and his dragging his then-fiancé was the line of demarcation. NFL teams no longer sign domestic abusers without a second thought. Some still do it, but there is a price to pay.
Now after Ray Rice and Sam Ukwuachu, can you imagine a coach asking a president for some latitude on a recruit or a transfer of ill-repute? Can you imagine Stoops today asking David Boren for permission to bring in Dorial Green-Beckham?
The answer wouldn’t be just no.
Ukwuachu will sober up many an administrator and coach. So in a way, Art Briles has helped make college campuses safer. At the expense of his own.
http://newsok.com/briles-likely-will-survive-but-the-next-guilty-coach-wont/article/5441922/?page=2
