Everyone Murders

June 2nd, 2016 at 8:49 AM ^

Unlike (the loathsome) PSU, Baylor doesn't have a couple of generations of locals who grew up adoring the mythical program.  A kid recruited by Baylor likely did not grow up a Baylor fan, so why not leave when the walls are crumbling around the school?

Everyone Murders

June 2nd, 2016 at 8:56 AM ^

From OT recruit J.P. Urquidez's father:

"J.P. should be afforded the opportunity to go to a university that is not riddled with investigation, not labeled with sexual assault and rape," said Julian Urquidez, whose son is an offensive tackle from Copperas Cove (Texas) High School. "He should be afforded the opportunity to go to a university that is safe."

Well put, sir.  I hope McLane Stadium becomes a $266M monument to the shameful loss of perspective of that school, sitting empty for years, followed by decades of SMU-like irrelevance.  Just desserts.

LSAClassOf2000

June 2nd, 2016 at 8:57 AM ^

Hopefully, this guy speaks for a lot of people who have students as well as athletes at Baylor - how can you feel safe at a school that so brazenly disregarded the safety of its students just so it could keep a good thing going, if you will? I don't blame any of these kids (or their parents) for looking elsewhere, hopefully at a school that doesn't have that sort of track record. 

Yeoman

June 2nd, 2016 at 12:13 PM ^

...probably because we only hear about the story through sports media, is that this wasn't limited to football, or athletics generally. There was a particular set of problems around Briles and his staff, for sure, and a shocking percentage of reported assaults at the school have involved football players, but beyond that there was a--I started to write "flawed" but from their perspective it wasn't flawed at all. how about "warped"?--general process in place to deal with complaints that disregarded the safety of female students by shaming anyone that came forward, regardless of who was being accused.

I guess I bring it up because while Briles was just keeping a good thing going, the broader problem there exists for other reasons and involves other motivations.

Don

June 2nd, 2016 at 10:45 AM ^

All Baylor recruits should be given the opportunity to get out of their LOIs if they wish, but let's cut the disingenuous crap about wanting to go to a school that's "safe"—JP Urdiquez is 6-5 and 300 lbs, for fuck's sake. Of all the current or prospective students at Baylor who need to fear for their personal safety, JP is at the bottom of the list.

PopeLando

June 2nd, 2016 at 11:09 AM ^

I don't think he necessarily meant "my 6-5 son needs to be safe from being raped."

Probably meant safe for his female classmates. Or safe from the stigma of football players at Baylor raping people with impunity. Or safe from having his scholarship pulled mid-career.

Or safe from an absolute shitstorm which will undoubtedly consume everyone even marginally associated with it.

Tater

June 2nd, 2016 at 12:36 PM ^

Sparty has been as bad as Baylor for 10 years now.  Cleaves, Payne and Appling are just the ones we know about.  Baylor is already toast.  Save your outrage for Sparty, who really deserve to take a ten-year "siesta" from basketball.  For all we know, Dantonio has become as adept as Izzo at covering up assaults, sexual and otherwise, by his players, too.

Jeff09

June 2nd, 2016 at 8:56 AM ^

I have to imagine that Baylor will grant all of the releases. No way do they want to set off more public ire by obviously fucking over a bunch more innocent people here. But, it's the NCAA and it's college football, so who the fuck knows

Everyone Murders

June 2nd, 2016 at 9:02 AM ^

Baylor ain't smart.  You're not wrong (and fortunately there is now a modicum of adult supervision at Baylor - so maybe with pressure they'll change course and grant releases), but Baylor ain't smart.

That's just one of the things we've learned about Baylor over the past few weeks.

PopeLando

June 2nd, 2016 at 11:11 AM ^

I don't know about that. The Baylor Board seems to know how to go with the flow. I'm guessing that they haven't been involved with this particular question (grant release or not) yet, but once it becomes bigger than a breadbasket - soon - they will do the right thing...even if it's not for the right reason...

CalifExile

June 2nd, 2016 at 11:45 AM ^

If the Board gets involved in that level of micro-management Baylor has a whole new set of problems. The Board was clearly derelict in ignoring the problems until they exploded into the general public's conscience, so I won't assume that they'll do the right thing now. They have a coach and they should let him run his program.

Farnn

June 2nd, 2016 at 8:59 AM ^

Looks like Baylor is already making the unwise decision to not let them out of their LOIs.  Just wait for a few weeks when it blows up in their face and they do what they should have done.

Blazefire

June 2nd, 2016 at 10:55 AM ^

SPIKE made the decision to retire from the game. That was his. After a year, he decided he was feeling better and wanted to try again. Beilein would be doing a diservice to himself, the team, the fans, and Spike himself, to allow him to just change his mind like that at any point.

A: Coach, Team, and Fans shouldn't have to plan around and be saddled with a guy who might still be too hurt to play.

B: Coach and Team shouldn't have to practice around a guy who might be too hurt to play down the road and had already made that decision once

McSomething

June 2nd, 2016 at 11:58 AM ^

No he didn't, all he said was Beilein did the same thing. Including the assumed inevitable back peddle. Not releasing a player from a LoI is not the same as restricting a player, that "retired", then decided to come back and play one season elsewhere, from playing on a guaranteed 2-3 time opponent. They are different situations. So they will be met with different reactions. Do I agree with transfer restrictions? No, but those are the rules on the books.

Magnus

June 2nd, 2016 at 12:42 PM ^

It does fit the circumstances. Someone tried to leave the program. Michigan initially said no. Then public pressure caused Michigan to back off that statement.

Currently Baylor is saying no. Public pressure will (I'm guessing) cause them to say yes eventually.

Are all the details the same? No. Do they have to be? No.

The end.

BlueFish

June 2nd, 2016 at 1:08 PM ^

Michigan didn't tell Spike he couldn't leave.  He announced he was leaving (having graduated), and Michigan said he couldn't transfer to a B1G school.

I get your point, that restricting a player's options (be it release from LOI or restricting transfer destination) isn't in the player's best interest.  But these are also two very different situations.

EDIT: Sorry, beaten by a few seconds.

BigBlue02

June 2nd, 2016 at 12:39 PM ^

Spike played here for 4 years and these recruits haven't played a down for Baylor. Baylor is going through a sexual assault shitstorm and Michigan is not. Beilein didn't force Spike to stay at Michigan, something Baylor is doing. Transfering within the conference and playing the following year is nothing like signing an LOI and then wanting to sign elsewhere after the school you committed to fires the coach for intimidating rape victims. Do I really need to go on why the two situations are absolutely nothing alike and aren't even comparable?

Farnn

June 2nd, 2016 at 10:00 AM ^

I still don't understand why the Beilein/Spike thing blew up the way it did.  It has been a long standing practice in college sports to restrict players transfer options to teams not on your future schedule, so it wasn't unexpected that those restrictions would be on Spike.  Even Spike didn't make a big deal about it.  There are 300+ other teams he could have transferred to, so it wasn't some huge inconvenience placed on him.  And then the Michigan fans who have turned on Beilein made a stink about the restrictions because once you turn on a coach every decision they make is wrong.

Rabbit21

June 2nd, 2016 at 10:32 AM ^

He wound up going to Purdue, Spike may not have been at the forefront of this, but someone close to him was the driving force behind this blowing up or he would have ended up at one of the hundreds of schools that was open to him that were not initially restricted.  Blaming Michigan fans for holding a consistent standard in how they want players to be treated is aiming and missing pretty badly in trying to assign the root cause behind the story getting out of control.

Rabbit21

June 2nd, 2016 at 10:07 AM ^

Agreed, it's a knee jerk response to maintain control that always turns into terrible PR and then the school ends up backing off.  At some point I wish everyone would just realize what was going to happen and fast forwarded to the endpoint instead of making us go through this stupid kabuki theater.