OT - On Baylor and Penn State and what really matters.
Yes there's already a post on the firing of the head coach at Baylor below, but I think this merits a separate topic as a sudden counter point of clarity to Penn State.
For the thousands of us who still seethe at Penn State's administration, coaches and vocal fanbase for mishandling, and subsequently defending the mishandling of the Sandusky atrocities, we can now just point to Baylor.
Years, if not decades ago, Penn State did not do as Baylor has done. Penn State did not decisively remind their community, fans and revered head coach that sports, winning and idolatry are nothing compared to preserving and protecting the rights, dignity and welfare of the young and vulnerable.
The facts may not all be in. Points of "apples to oranges" distinction abound and are aplenty. Perhaps Baylor's administrators had a few dirty secrets of their own, but for today at least, kudos to Baylor's administrators for doing a small part toward restoring our faith and perspective in what really matters in the world.
Oh, and eff Penn State.
Look me up when they fire Starr instead of paying him piles of money to work a cush, halftime job for as long as he wants and stay on as chancellor.
"You did terrible things, please be a chancellor and professor" rings a hollow to me.
some information that would have greatly embarrassed Baylor. The guy is a politico. He knows how that sordid game works.
embarrassing. For your answer you would need to talk to Baylor administration because only they would know the answer to your question.
Always assuming that the report and their conduct is as bad as we imagine it must be...
-Starr and Briles need to be fired for cause, and any attempt by either one to claim another dime in salary or benefits should be vigorously litigated.
-Neither one should ever be allowed to work at a University again in any capacity.
-They should be named in every lawsuit filed by every woman who was exposed to sexual assault involving a football player during their tenure until all their money is gone and they are living on the street.
I have been a coach for over 30 years. Tennis in high school rather than football in college, admittedly. Regardless, winning and job security can't ever trump what you know to be morally right. Briles made millions because he's an innovator, and apparently also partly because rules didn't apply to his players if he needed them to win. How does he sleep at night knowing what happened to those women?
Sorry, will put my soapbox away now. Scumbags, both of them.
back in the PSU days, we didn't have social media and 24-hour news cycles. If that had existed, Joe Pa would have been under the same type of microscope and may have seen similar results.
Baylor did something because they had to do something, not out of some moral obligation. It was self-preservation.
But still, they did something. So far there has been no whining about fairness and legacy. Baylor put on their big boy pants. Most Penn State fans still wish for the good old days and resent/hate anyone whose opinions differ.
...one of the reasons they acted is that they were under pressure from within the community to take action because the community--students, staff, alums--felt there was a moral obligation.
Read the comments at the Baylor blogs--not just the comments today, but as the story developed. There are some folks close to the program defending Briles and the players involved, but the dominant narrative is that people feel betrayed by the football program. Their moral ideal may not quite align with mine, but a lot of people there take it seriously. And there sure as hell aren't any mass rallies in Waco demanding that a statue of Briles be put back up on campus.
sorry, but raping children repeatedely over 20 years is a little worse than not pursuing allegations of sexual assault against football players. Both bad, but one tips the scales of awfulness by many tons
Briles is equivalent to Paterno in these situations. Sandusky is more like the football players that raped the Baylor students. Briles was suspended with the intent to fire. Paterno is still glorified by PSU fans. Everyone agrees Sandusky is a monster.
Eh, both seem like rape cover ups to me. Not sure I even see a point in which one is worse once they've crossed the 'dispicable' threshold.
because we don't know if the women was raped, since there wasn't a trial--we know boys were raped
There have already been two convictions at Baylor and a third player is awaiting trial.
Both were bad. It's not a situation where one was awful and the other one was more awful. By saying this, you're discounting the victims at Baylor by inferring those involved aren't as harmed as the ones hurt by Sandusky and Penn State.
but the big-picture storyline is more similar than different. Oh, we got caught? OK, NOW we will do something.
Considering the Baylor basketball story and the PSU football story, you'd think the guilty Baylor parties would have known better.
Do the right thing --- always.
PSU had a coach molesting children in the school's athletic facilities. I would hope that's extremely rare. They had much more control over the circumstances of the crimes than Baylor.
Baylor had athletes assaulting women. Sadly, that's all too commonplace in college sports. So too, is those players getting shielded from the consequences of their actions. Baylor is not the only school to have that type of problem. There was obviously a difference in degree and that was due to Baylor's actions.
The failures of both schools are very similar. We already know a lot about Penn State's. Baylor had a president directly in contact with victims. The school and he were actively unhelpful to them and violated relevant Title IX rules. Mike Farrell said something yesterday that I agree with. When something serious is going on in their program, the head coach always knows.
What's yet to be determined is how much differently the schools respond once they finally act. On the surface they appear to be mostly similar. I do find it interesting that Baylor is announcing the need to make a cultural change regarding football and athletics. That's quite a bit different than PSU. PSU decided not to self-impose any sanctions on football. That might have been the tipping point for NCAA action. I'm curious whether Baylor wants to tempt fate in the same way..
The level of cognitive dissonance on issue like this always amazes me. I’m a Catholic from a long line of Irish RC’s and when the priest abuse scandal happened I hated the people who circled the wagons and tried to pass of blame somewhere else or equivocate. When someone does wrong, or in this case evil, in the name of something you believe in and count yourself a member of you should be leading the charge to be better, not pretending to be persecuted. But the largest swath of nitany lions have put their fingers in their ears and pretended like it was a witch hunt out to get them personally. I hope Baylor handles this better.
something which you have invested yoursef emotionally in. People in general will look for some explanation as to why their (insert belove institution here) committed such a heinous act and often will do as a means of minimizing their own moral complicity in it.
We all are guilty of it or at least capable of it. The important thing is to recognize that and respond appropriately if and when one of our own beloved institutions find's itself under a self-created black cloud.
This is why I continue to be impressed with the majority of our fan base. The Spike transfer issue was pretty low stakes, and sure being complained about in the sports page pales in comparison. However, most fans seemed to agree that we owed the man as much as to do right by him, and there was no defending of the shield. The same can be said about the Shane situation. While a lot of outsiders say that it was motivated by our record, I think it proved that we care about the people who are effected more than the alma mater who didn’t live up to the trust we put in it.
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I remember very clearly when all the Penn State news broke having conversations with many people about how badly I felt for their fans. I put myself in their shoes and thought about if that had been Bo instead of JoePa. Bo is the biggest reason i fell in love with Michigan. It's because of everything he was and stood for and believed in. So if I were to have woke up one day and found out that all of that was a sham, I would have been beyond devestated. However, I would have burned everything associated with Michigan and moved on (after several years of intense therapy). I feel very sad for the students, athletes, and fanbase of Baylor, but If you allow something to change your morals just because you are emotionally attached to it, you are headed down a bad road!
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because in that case everything that made me love the university would have been a lie. Keep in mind the scenario I laid out. If it would have been Bo instead of JoePa. I was debating with somebody. Honestly even the imaginary scenario of that chills me to the bone. I will no longer discuss this scenario!!!!
because humanity has done much worse than what happened at PSU and Baylor.
At some point you have to accept that human beings acting in roles of trusted authority will do horrible things and hope that the reforms can redeem the man-made institution. Otherwise you will be a misanthrope to the core of your being. What fun is that?
Demanding moral perfection makes us feel good, but it's not practical in a planet filled with flawed people. Atonement and forgiveness are two concepts I firmly believe in if for no other reason than to avoid loathing humanity.
One of the problems the Catholic Church had was how they handled allegations of abuse. They would reassign the Priest to a new Diocese and hope the problem would go away. From what I've read of the Baylor report, it appears they were doing the same thing by dismissing players for "unspecified rules violations" and then helping the players get admitted to another university. It's sickening.
Wouldn't you be pissed if the guy who was helping you get away with being a criminal was canned.
I don't think I had enough maturity at 18-22 to understand the reparcusions of how and what I say. I am going to extend that argument and would think that the players are not mature enough. Additionally, the first reaction is usually to circle the wagon.
I won't read too much in this. Now if the same behavior comes from older folks (say 30 yrs and older) that would be of concern.
Baylor got caught in the act, penn state didn't. I wouldn't take this to mean the people at baylor are holier than the ones at psu
"When someone does wrong, or in this case evil, in the name of something you believe in and count yourself a member of you should be leading the charge to be better, not pretending to be persecuted."
One of my favorite things I've read here, and couldn't agree more. It's become a sort of go-to strategy for people or organizations that are accused of wrongdoing, to go on the offensive and point fingers at everyone else. We'll never fix anything in this world with that attitude.
"It's natural" is a piss poor excuse for anything. It's human nature to murder and rape and steal. I'd like to think our goal as a society is to rise above our primitive impulses.
Yes, I know it can happen anywhere. I've said multiple times re: Penn State that if that ever happened to Michigan, it'd be the day I permanently ceased being a Wolverine fan. Some things are more important than football. You'd think we all know that, but then here we are with Baylor.
I am not excusing anything. I am just saying what you are seeing is more norm than the other way around. The only way to stop things like this from occurring is to acknowledge your tendency and fight against it. The holier-than-thou kind of attitude is exactly why these kinds of things keep happening.
And I guarantee that if something like that happened here, there will be a significant number of people on this very board defending the coaching staff.
I never said it wasn't normal. I'm saying it's something we need to overcome as a society. If you victimize someone, you don't get a pass by saying, "Well so-and-so also hurt people, so if you come after me about it, you're making me a victim too." That simply cannot be allowed as a defense if we want to live in a civilization and enjoy human rights.
I strongly disagree that these things keep happening because of a holier-than-thou attitude. That's just one more way to deflect blame off of those responsible. If your father brags constantly about his sobriety when you're a kid, you don't get to grow up, kill someone while driving drunk, then blame your dad for being so self-righteous about alcohol.
Yes, you're absolutely right that people here would be defending the coaching staff. I would not be among them. I don't base my personal ethics on internet chat forums, and the ability of sports fans to rationalize away all sorts of crimes when committed by their favorite players or coaches has always made me uncomfortable.
"Holier-than-Thou" attitude is exactly why these things keep happening.
Everybody thinks something like this cannot possibly happen at their institution, because "we do things right" & "we have morals". But this kind of thinking is dangerous because it makes you blind to things when something goes wrong. You make excuses like "I am sure our adminsitration is handling these things" or "the accusers must be wrong since we are not that kind of people". This makes it easier for true miscreants to hide behind the institution to rail against accusers and silence them.
Baylor is a BAPTIST college, a religious institution! If it can happen there, it can happen anywhere. If we have more people with that attitude, we can be more vigil and recognize it earlier when things go wrong. No one is immuned to this kind of travesty. It can happen anywhere. Hell, there were/are still many supporters for Gibbons and Lewan on this board.
More we recognize that, the better we will be.
Nothing about how corrupt the higher-ups were suggests they thought they do things right and have morals. I'm talking about the people in authority positions that actively did wrong. They are the ones at fault, not the random Baylor fans that thought it'd never happen to them. If you want to make this an argument about whether the apathy of your typical Baylor fan allowed these issues to go unchecked for as long as they did, that's one thing. But there's a fair amount of real estate between actively doing wrong and not knowing about the wrongdoing of others because you assume things are fine.
As for the "If it can happen at a religious institution it can happen anywhere" argument, well, perhaps I'm not adequately pious, but I don't believe religious institutions are any more likely to prevent rape or violence against women. In fact, I think historical precedent suggests the opposite, if anything. I probably should avoid opening that can of worms and so I'll just leave it at that for now.
For what it's worth, I do think we agree that a false sense of security, rationalizing of bad behavior, and apathy are all problems we need to fix. So there's that.
Not seeing what PSU and Baylor have in common. Assaults occurred in the PSU locker room against children and law enforcement was never notified. In the Baylor case the ALLEGED assaults happened off campus against adults who notified the police and the university. If Briles goes down then the entire Baylor administration and Waco PD should go down as well.
I expect the US DoJ to get involved. This is just the beginning.
There is nothing ALLEGED about it. People were convicted for their actions. Baylor AD/Football departmeent and the university adminstrators actively worked to suppress assault allegation and according to the report fucking retaliated against one person who continue to pursue the case. I do agree that more heads should roll at the university and maybe even the Waco PD but that doesn't absolve Briles from his disgusting actions
What player was convicted and what was the sentence?
Tevin Elliot got 20 years.
He was suspended after he was arrested.
And Paterno reported the incidents to administrators. So are we all good?
What else is Briles supposed to do? Paterno should have notified the police. Are you saying Briles should have notified the police about a crime they already know about?