https://theathletic.com/802553/2019/02/05/art-briles-southern-miss-interview-wrong-message-baylor/
Southern Miss is sending a clear message by interviewing former Baylor coach Art Briles to be its new offensive coordinator.
“You’re basically saying you don’t care about your students and their safety,” said Brenda Tracy, the founder of Set The Expectation and one of the nation’s leading anti-sexual violence activists. “There is literally no other way to look at this.”
Now, at least one on-campus organization is trying to stop the football program from actually hiring him.
The Committee on Services and Resources for Women at the university sent a letter Tuesday night to provost and senior vice president for academic affairs Steven Moser and interim athletic director Jeff Mitchell opposing the hire.
“Based on Mr. Briles’ affiliation with Baylor’s football team during a time when some members were implicated in a number of sexual assaults and the promotion of a rape culture while he held a position of authority, we are adamantly opposed to the University of Southern Mississippi’s hiring of Mr. Briles,” reads the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Athletic. “His presence on campus would undermine the mission of our committee to improve the status and lives of women. In fact, we believe that, based on his tenure at Baylor, USM’s hire of Mr. Briles would go against several of the university’s values:
Student engagement that fosters personal growth, professional development and a lifelong commitment to wellness
A campus culture characterized by warmth and mutually-supportive connections among students, faculty, staff and alumni
An approach to academics, research and personal conduct based on integrity and civility
Community participation that promotes social responsibility and citizenship”
“We are shocked and dismayed,” said Dr. Stacy Creel, president-elect of CSRW and an associate professor in the Southern Miss School of Library and Information Science. “Rape culture is a serious issue on college campuses, and this does not go with the stated values of our university.
“A football win is not worth risking the safety of our campus.”
The CSRW was not the only organization to reach out to campus leadership to make its opinion known, Creel said after the Sun Herald reported Monday that Briles would interview for the Golden Eagles’ open offensive coordinator job under head coach Jay Hopson.
This is what it looks like when a football program prizes winning — and an aesthetically pleasing spread offense — above all else. Which is precisely what Southern Miss would be doing if it hired Briles.
Thirty-one of Briles’ players were accused of 52 acts of sexual violence in a 2017 lawsuit against Baylor, making it reasonable to ask if the person who brought those young men on to a college campus should ever be responsible for recruiting and mentoring young men on a college campus again. Almost every college in this country believes he should not. Leadership at Southern Miss is considering giving him that chance anyway.
If it does, Southern Miss would be saying it believes it is acceptable to hire a man who personally intervened in sexual assault cases in order to preserve his athletes’ eligibility. The same man who consistently blamed or questioned victims, responding to report of a gang rape and a list of players the victim identified with this text message: “Those are some bad dudes. Why was she around those guys?” Or, that a player he’d worked to keep on the field was about to be charged with sexual assault with “Dang it.”
Pepper Hamilton’s investigators found that Briles and his staff operated as if they were above both school rules and the law. And while there were clearly larger university-wide issues at hand involving Title IX reports and investigations for the broader student population, that is not an excuse for the abhorrent behavior within the football program. It was certainly enough to lead to Briles’ firing in May 2016.
It might be possible to look at Briles differently had he handled the aftermath of his ouster in another manner. Perhaps it would be worth considering the idea of a second chance had he shown any remorse for what he was a part of at Baylor. Or had he indicated that he understands the pain and trauma victims of sexual violence go through? Or had he taken actual steps to learn from what happened.
But Briles has never done any of those things. He has told reporters, “I’ve never done anything illegal, immoral, unethical.” He has said if he were to meet the victims of the sexual assaults committed by his former players, he and the victims would “hopefully” have “a good cry session, and then a talk session and then, hopefully, a hug session, because it just appalls me that somebody could victimize another human being.” Briles also filed (then dropped) a libel lawsuit against Baylor.
Throughout all of this, he has been consistent about one thing: He wants someone to let him coach their football team. This has been hard to come by, for good reason. Briles was close to a job with the CFL’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 2017, but they pulled their offer after receiving backlash. He had been radioactive to just about everyone until Southern Miss decided to interview him this week.
“It’s a huge slap in the face, not to just survivors to hire Art Briles but to all survivors,” Tracy said. “I just heard from a Baylor survivor today. She said, ‘I’m just trying to keep my life together.’ Baylor didn’t happen that long ago. The trauma is still very intense and very real for Baylor survivors. When is there ever any reprieve for them? When do they get to start their healing process?
“Every aspect of their lives is forever changed. And people are just worried about winning football games.”
Among the few people who have defended Briles since his firing are those who were taken down with him — like former athletic director Ian McCaw, who was inexplicably later hired at Liberty, and former university president Ken Starr, who inexplicably gave a keynote address at Stetson University’s annual Higher Education Law and Policy Conference this past weekend. Briles’ son, Kendal, now the offensive coordinator at Florida State, and other members of his Baylor staff have also defended Briles in the subsequent months and years. These people believe Art Briles will at some point be exonerated from all wrongdoing, be it by the NCAA or some greater power.
They are missing the point.
This isn’t about whether or not Art Briles’ name was disgraced or if the football team bore the brunt of a campus-wide sexual assault scandal. It isn’t about letting him hang out on a sideline again, one that’s a little closer to his roots than the Italian team he’s currently coaching. It is about doing what’s right to keep a college campus as safe as it can be. It is about leadership doing whatever it can to ensure its female students are not endangered.
And that is why Southern Miss making this move would be so irresponsible.
Southern Miss is sending a clear message by interviewing former Baylor coach Art Briles to be its new offensive coordinator.
“You’re basically saying you don’t care about your students and their safety,” said Brenda Tracy, the founder of Set The Expectation and one of the nation’s leading anti-sexual violence activists. “There is literally no other way to look at this.”
Now, at least one on-campus organization is trying to stop the football program from actually hiring him.
The Committee on Services and Resources for Women at the university sent a letter Tuesday night to provost and senior vice president for academic affairs Steven Moser and interim athletic director Jeff Mitchell opposing the hire.
“Based on Mr. Briles’ affiliation with Baylor’s football team during a time when some members were implicated in a number of sexual assaults and the promotion of a rape culture while he held a position of authority, we are adamantly opposed to the University of Southern Mississippi’s hiring of Mr. Briles,” reads the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Athletic. “His presence on campus would undermine the mission of our committee to improve the status and lives of women. In fact, we believe that, based on his tenure at Baylor, USM’s hire of Mr. Briles would go against several of the university’s values:
Student engagement that fosters personal growth, professional development and a lifelong commitment to wellness
A campus culture characterized by warmth and mutually-supportive connections among students, faculty, staff and alumni
An approach to academics, research and personal conduct based on integrity and civility
Community participation that promotes social responsibility and citizenship”
“We are shocked and dismayed,” said Dr. Stacy Creel, president-elect of CSRW and an associate professor in the Southern Miss School of Library and Information Science. “Rape culture is a serious issue on college campuses, and this does not go with the stated values of our university.
“A football win is not worth risking the safety of our campus.”
The CSRW was not the only organization to reach out to campus leadership to make its opinion known, Creel said after the Sun Herald reported Monday that Briles would interview for the Golden Eagles’ open offensive coordinator job under head coach Jay Hopson.
This is what it looks like when a football program prizes winning — and an aesthetically pleasing spread offense — above all else. Which is precisely what Southern Miss would be doing if it hired Briles.
Thirty-one of Briles’ players were accused of 52 acts of sexual violence in a 2017 lawsuit against Baylor, making it reasonable to ask if the person who brought those young men on to a college campus should ever be responsible for recruiting and mentoring young men on a college campus again. Almost every college in this country believes he should not. Leadership at Southern Miss is considering giving him that chance anyway.
If it does, Southern Miss would be saying it believes it is acceptable to hire a man who personally intervened in sexual assault cases in order to preserve his athletes’ eligibility. The same man who consistently blamed or questioned victims, responding to report of a gang rape and a list of players the victim identified with this text message: “Those are some bad dudes. Why was she around those guys?” Or, that a player he’d worked to keep on the field was about to be charged with sexual assault with “Dang it.”
Pepper Hamilton’s investigators found that Briles and his staff operated as if they were above both school rules and the law. And while there were clearly larger university-wide issues at hand involving Title IX reports and investigations for the broader student population, that is not an excuse for the abhorrent behavior within the football program. It was certainly enough to lead to Briles’ firing in May 2016.
It might be possible to look at Briles differently had he handled the aftermath of his ouster in another manner. Perhaps it would be worth considering the idea of a second chance had he shown any remorse for what he was a part of at Baylor. Or had he indicated that he understands the pain and trauma victims of sexual violence go through? Or had he taken actual steps to learn from what happened.
But Briles has never done any of those things. He has told reporters, “I’ve never done anything illegal, immoral, unethical.” He has said if he were to meet the victims of the sexual assaults committed by his former players, he and the victims would “hopefully” have “a good cry session, and then a talk session and then, hopefully, a hug session, because it just appalls me that somebody could victimize another human being.” Briles also filed (then dropped) a libel lawsuit against Baylor.
Throughout all of this, he has been consistent about one thing: He wants someone to let him coach their football team. This has been hard to come by, for good reason. Briles was close to a job with the CFL’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 2017, but they pulled their offer after receiving backlash. He had been radioactive to just about everyone until Southern Miss decided to interview him this week.
“It’s a huge slap in the face, not to just survivors to hire Art Briles but to all survivors,” Tracy said. “I just heard from a Baylor survivor today. She said, ‘I’m just trying to keep my life together.’ Baylor didn’t happen that long ago. The trauma is still very intense and very real for Baylor survivors. When is there ever any reprieve for them? When do they get to start their healing process?
“Every aspect of their lives is forever changed. And people are just worried about winning football games.”
Among the few people who have defended Briles since his firing are those who were taken down with him — like former athletic director Ian McCaw, who was inexplicably later hired at Liberty, and former university president Ken Starr, who inexplicably gave a keynote address at Stetson University’s annual Higher Education Law and Policy Conference this past weekend. Briles’ son, Kendal, now the offensive coordinator at Florida State, and other members of his Baylor staff have also defended Briles in the subsequent months and years. These people believe Art Briles will at some point be exonerated from all wrongdoing, be it by the NCAA or some greater power.
They are missing the point.
This isn’t about whether or not Art Briles’ name was disgraced or if the football team bore the brunt of a campus-wide sexual assault scandal. It isn’t about letting him hang out on a sideline again, one that’s a little closer to his roots than the Italian team he’s currently coaching. It is about doing what’s right to keep a college campus as safe as it can be. It is about leadership doing whatever it can to ensure its female students are not endangered.
And that is why Southern Miss making this move would be so irresponsible.
