Art Briles should not be employed as a college football coach. Not if you believe character matters. Not if you believe leadership matters. Not if you believe a coach’s past conduct matters. And certainly not if you believe valuing women matters.
College football coaches are tasked with leading young men. Part of leading young men should involve building a culture that values and respects women and disciplining players who don’t.
Briles won games at an impressive clip at Baylor behind an innovative offense, but he failed as a leader. An investigation found Briles presided over a football program in which accusations of sexual assault and violence involving his players went unchecked. Two Baylor players were convicted of sexual assault.
The only explanation for Briles being a college football coach today is a belief that winning trumps all. Unfortunately, too many colleges fall into that category. Include Grambling State on that list.
Grambling hired Briles as its offensive coordinator, the school confirmed Thursday.
Now we know the penalty for getting fired as the coach of a football program that engaged in one of the ugliest scandals in college sports history: a six-year hiatus from college football.
“Any college that would hire Art Briles is certainly sending a message to survivors on that campus that their experiences aren’t that important,” said Brenda Tracy, a leading national advocate for sexual assault prevention, “and sending a message to young men that if you’re good enough at your job, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done, you can still work in this field. It’s a damaging message.”
Tracy, in 2014, went public with her story that she was gang raped in 1998 by four football players, two of whom played for Oregon State. The accused men were never brought to trial or convicted.
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