OT: Iowa needs to screen its academic advisors a little better

Submitted by James Burrill Angell on

Just read the article and then think of puppies and kitties for a while to get your skin to stop crawling.

http://tracking.si.com/2012/11/10/university-of-iowa-athletics-adviser-accused-of-trading-football-tickets-for-sexual-favors-and-touching-athletes/?sct=obnetwork

Can't figure out how Iowa rehired this guy after ten years away from the school if he already had records of inappropriate behavior during his first stint working there.


Ewwwww......

 

 

BlueinLansing

November 13th, 2012 at 4:02 PM ^

that

 

1)  this stuff goes on

2)  that it seems to be allowed to continue far beyond what it should have.

 

I've seen people fired for stealing a sack lunch yet keep their jobs for harassing an employee.  It never makes sense to me

JHendo

November 13th, 2012 at 4:13 PM ^

Well, I think we now know what caused the wrath of the AIRBHG...

But in all seriousness, my sympathies to his victims and poor form on Iowa's part for not more timely handling this guy as soon as allegations surfaced.

LSAClassOf2000

November 13th, 2012 at 5:11 PM ^

"His job duties at the Gerdin Academic Learning Center included serving as a functional supervisor to the academic coordinators, and providing one-one-one counseling, mentoring and academic advising to student-athletes. " - from the Press-Citizen article

Given how many people are in and out of such a place, I assume, and how many people likely interfaced with this guy, that's a lot of trust betrayed by the University of Iowa for not acting on allegations that go back to the early and mid-1990s, I would think, and indeed, shame on them for hiring him again. According to the Press-Citizen piece - here  - he has also held positions at Austin  Peay, Mississippi, Indiana and Coastal Carolina. This story may come in many awful segments, if engaged in this sort of behavior elsewhere. 

UMRecruitingFannatic

November 13th, 2012 at 6:45 PM ^

That seems like a lot of jobs in random places for such a seemingly innocuous job.  I mean, being an academic advisor has to be pretty similar no matter where you go and it doesn't appear as though he was moving up in conference prestige or pay... so maybe he was getting treated like a bad priest and just being shifted around to different locations?  Obviously this is bad press for Iowa, so I'd imagine say... Austin Peay would likely rather just "let him go" than bring something like this to light.  Sad, but it is the world we live in.

STW P. Brabbs

November 14th, 2012 at 8:22 AM ^

This is very, very different from the Sandusky case. What was at Penn State was a pedophile and rapist who shattered the lives of numerous children. This thing at Iowa, so far as we know, is a creepy pervert who got handsy with adult student-athletes. Disgusting, but not heart-of-darkness evil. Ridiculous to lump them together.

STW P. Brabbs

November 14th, 2012 at 8:26 AM ^

I have to admit, I didn't read carefully enough after 'so Sandusky scary.' Sorry about that. Still, I don't think it's fair to postulate that because this guy sexually harassed and even touched college athletes he likely raped children too.

UMRecruitingFannatic

November 13th, 2012 at 6:43 PM ^

"Gray also admitted that he had a photograph of male swim team members posing in their swimsuits as a screen saver on his work computer."  Why is this line included?  Seems like the investigators are falling into the Texas Sharpshooters Fallacy there.  I'd find it more strange if he didn't have a picture of an athletic team on his work computer. 

Buck Killer

November 13th, 2012 at 10:08 PM ^

We need to unload Pedo U and realign or we are screwed. Mark my words..... Ever seen a snowball roll down a huge hill? Well it is rolling for the big ten.