http://grantland.com/the-triangle/baylor-sam-ukwuachu-art-briles-controversy/
Not to be indelicate about it, but the past 12 years have featured quite the run of malfeasance at the Baylor University athletic department. In 2003, a Baylor basketball player named Carlton Dotson murdered another Baylor basketball player named Patrick Dennehy. Dave Bliss, who then was coaching Baylor’s basketball team, initially responded to the murder by trying to convince others to term the victim a drug dealer, largely to explain how Dennehy was able to pay his tuition, which Bliss himself was actually paying under the table. Dotson went away to prison for 35 years. Bliss was hired this year to coach at some place called Southwestern Christian University. This is what the university president said was the reason the school had hired Bliss:
“Coach Bliss fits well within our mission and culture and embraces what a Christian-based education is all about.”
And they say religious people have no sense of humor.
Now it’s the Baylor football team’s turn, and while the current scandal is nowhere near as baroque as the ones that surrounded the murder of Patrick Dennehy, it nonetheless raises the question of what in the hell is going on at this 170-year-old Baptist university, which didn’t even allow on-campus dancing until 1996. Say what you will about Baylor, but it caught up on the seven deadly sins in a hurry.
On Friday, a judge in Waco sentenced a former defensive end named Sam Ukwuachu, who’d been a Freshman All-American at Boise State before transferring to Baylor (where he never played a down), to 180 days in jail and 10 years’ probation for the 2013 sexual assault of a former Baylor soccer player. Like the Dennehy case before it, Ukwuachu’s trial opened up a small storage tank of worms. For example, a Baylor in-house investigation of what transpired between Ukwuachu and the victim (identified below as Jane Doe) apparently made Dave Bliss look like Sherlock Holmes in comparison. A groundbreaking story in Texas Monthly revealed the Baylor probe to be a masterpiece of perfunctory twaddle.
It involved reading text messages, looking at a polygraph test Ukwuachu had independently commissioned — which is rarely admissible in court — and contacting Ukwuachu, Doe, and one witness on behalf of each of them. Ukwuachu’s roommate, Peni Tagive, is the primary witness in his defense.
The Baylor investigation was so laughably shoddy that, at Ukwuachu’s trial, presiding judge Matt Johnson wouldn’t allow Ukwuachu’s defense team even to enter its findings into evidence. A rape kit taken in the immediate aftermath indicated that the assault had taken place. Moreover, as the trial proceeded, the reason for Ukwuachu’s dismissal from Boise State became public. He had been accused of assaulting his girlfriend there. She came to Waco and testified against him. (Ukwuachu denies those allegations.)
This has set off a hooley between Baylor coach Art Briles and University of Washington coach Chris Petersen, who’d been Ukwuachu’s coach at Boise State. Briles insisted that Petersen never told him about the incident that precipitated Ukwuachu’s departure from the Broncos program. Petersen responded that he’d given Briles the complete circumstances, including the alleged assault. And this is what we’re arguing about now — which coach will most completely cover his ass before the season kicks off.
Jesus God, does this really matter? If Petersen didn’t tell Briles, he should have. If Briles didn’t ask, he should have. If Briles didn’t know, he should have. Does either of these guys think that passing the buck on this one matters a damn to the administration of justice, or to the victim herself? We really ought to be past the point on stories like this one where the future of “the program,” or whether a coach has kept some kind of weird good faith with another member of the lodge, or even if a coach can keep his job, ought to concern anyone beyond the coach and his immediate family. This is not a sports story. It never was.
Not to be indelicate about it, but the past 12 years have featured quite the run of malfeasance at the Baylor University athletic department. In 2003, a Baylor basketball player named Carlton Dotson murdered another Baylor basketball player named Patrick Dennehy. Dave Bliss, who then was coaching Baylor’s basketball team, initially responded to the murder by trying to convince others to term the victim a drug dealer, largely to explain how Dennehy was able to pay his tuition, which Bliss himself was actually paying under the table. Dotson went away to prison for 35 years. Bliss was hired this year to coach at some place called Southwestern Christian University. This is what the university president said was the reason the school had hired Bliss:
“Coach Bliss fits well within our mission and culture and embraces what a Christian-based education is all about.”
And they say religious people have no sense of humor.
Now it’s the Baylor football team’s turn, and while the current scandal is nowhere near as baroque as the ones that surrounded the murder of Patrick Dennehy, it nonetheless raises the question of what in the hell is going on at this 170-year-old Baptist university, which didn’t even allow on-campus dancing until 1996. Say what you will about Baylor, but it caught up on the seven deadly sins in a hurry.
On Friday, a judge in Waco sentenced a former defensive end named Sam Ukwuachu, who’d been a Freshman All-American at Boise State before transferring to Baylor (where he never played a down), to 180 days in jail and 10 years’ probation for the 2013 sexual assault of a former Baylor soccer player. Like the Dennehy case before it, Ukwuachu’s trial opened up a small storage tank of worms. For example, a Baylor in-house investigation of what transpired between Ukwuachu and the victim (identified below as Jane Doe) apparently made Dave Bliss look like Sherlock Holmes in comparison. A groundbreaking story in Texas Monthly revealed the Baylor probe to be a masterpiece of perfunctory twaddle.
It involved reading text messages, looking at a polygraph test Ukwuachu had independently commissioned — which is rarely admissible in court — and contacting Ukwuachu, Doe, and one witness on behalf of each of them. Ukwuachu’s roommate, Peni Tagive, is the primary witness in his defense.
The Baylor investigation was so laughably shoddy that, at Ukwuachu’s trial, presiding judge Matt Johnson wouldn’t allow Ukwuachu’s defense team even to enter its findings into evidence. A rape kit taken in the immediate aftermath indicated that the assault had taken place. Moreover, as the trial proceeded, the reason for Ukwuachu’s dismissal from Boise State became public. He had been accused of assaulting his girlfriend there. She came to Waco and testified against him. (Ukwuachu denies those allegations.)
This has set off a hooley between Baylor coach Art Briles and University of Washington coach Chris Petersen, who’d been Ukwuachu’s coach at Boise State. Briles insisted that Petersen never told him about the incident that precipitated Ukwuachu’s departure from the Broncos program. Petersen responded that he’d given Briles the complete circumstances, including the alleged assault. And this is what we’re arguing about now — which coach will most completely cover his ass before the season kicks off.
Jesus God, does this really matter? If Petersen didn’t tell Briles, he should have. If Briles didn’t ask, he should have. If Briles didn’t know, he should have. Does either of these guys think that passing the buck on this one matters a damn to the administration of justice, or to the victim herself? We really ought to be past the point on stories like this one where the future of “the program,” or whether a coach has kept some kind of weird good faith with another member of the lodge, or even if a coach can keep his job, ought to concern anyone beyond the coach and his immediate family. This is not a sports story. It never was.
