Breach of faith
Sex assault victims at Baylor describe how they struggled to get support, services when they reported their attacks
“I found out the hard way that no one really cared what happened to me. That changes the way you look at everything.”
SHE was wide awake when her iPhone alarm rang. She had been awake all night — again.
“I’ll get up today,” she told herself. “I’ll shower and get dressed. I’ll go to class.” She didn’t move. Seven days had passed since the 21-year-old Baylor University student was raped at an off-campus party in March 2012. She knew her attacker from an English elective class they had taken. She says he cornered her in a dark parking lot, then pushed into her car.
It had been four days since she tried to get help. Four days since someone with Baylor Health Services said she waited too long for a sexual assault exam; four days since a campus police officer said she should think twice before filing criminal charges; four days since she tried to get counseling on campus only to be put on a waiting list.
“We weren’t sure what we should do,” her mother recalled. “Should we just have her come home?”
The English major stared at the ceiling of her small bedroom in her apartment just off campus in Waco and closed her eyes; tears streamed down her face.
“I just wanted to die,” she told the Houston Chronicle, describing the moment. “I didn’t want to feel anything, to see anyone, to feel the pain I was feeling and the guilt I was feeling.
“It was clear no one cared about me anyway. What was the point?”
She would not get up that day. Or the next.
The Chronicle reviewed 12 cases dating to 2004 in which sexual assault victims at Baylor University said they came forward only to be met with ambivalence or skepticism by the school. Eight of the women filed lawsuits describing how Baylor constituencies — from campus police to the university health center to a dorm chaplain — struggled to
What to think of Art Briles?
With time on his hands, the former Baylor coach has visited some NFL training camps recently.
Presumably, it was to touch base with former players and friends in coaching. Maybe it was to get a feel for just how out he is, because he is out of football for the first time since 1979.
That Briles, 60, was welcomed by NFL teams isn’t a surprise. That he held court with media and seems to believe his unemployment will be short-lived is astonishing.
Tuesday, while in California at the Dallas Cowboys’ camp, Briles talked about his desire to return to coaching and that he anticipates it happening soon.
He expects his phone will start to ring as soon as this fall, when, as is always the case, a host of college coaches will find themselves on the hot seat.
“I just want to wear a whistle, and I’ll be happy,” said Briles, who was bought out of his contract in May.
Howhappy is he talking?
Shameful handling
Briles can’t really believe he could be a college football coach next season. I can’t imagine an athletic director, let alone a college president, would be willing to take on that heat.
Not with what we know. Or, more accurately, what we don’t know about Briles’ nine-year tenure at Baylor.
Baylor’s system of handling student allegations of sexual assault, which had nothing to do with Briles, was embarrassingly inadequate.
Its athletic department’s procedure for dealing with cases involving football players accused of assault, something for which Briles and ousted athletic director Ian McCaw were largely responsible, was shameful.
The more victims’ stories we hear, the more disgusted we are with everyone involved.
The problem is we are on our own when it comes to parceling out the rebuke. It would be better to put actions next to names.
Afull accounting of what Briles did or didn’t do, what he knew and didn’t know, isn’t too much to ask. But we aren’t likely to get it.
The school believes the best way to move past the controversy and get through the resulting lawsuits is to clean house and close ranks.
In a way, that has left Briles looking dirtier. His relative silence hasn’t helped appearances, and neither did his few words last week.
He claims to have always lived “life in a righteous manner.” Because we know so little about what transpired at Baylor, we need more than that.
Fewer questions in NFL
All we know is despite his superb on-the-field record and because of this mess, the school was willing to part ways with him. Had there been any way to move forward with Briles, Baylor regents would have taken that path.
Two of Briles’ former players have been convicted of rape, and a third has been charged with sexual assault.
If the only issue with Briles was that he took risks on a few players who turned out to have serious character issues, he would still be the coach at Baylor, or he would be protesting much louder, and not just “dumfounded” by what has happened.
Briles, who was the University of Houston coach for five seasons before moving to Waco, won’t have to seek forgiveness to be an assistant coach in the NFL. He could bring his offensive genius to meeting rooms and practice fields without having to answer too many tough questions.
That’s one of the major differences between professional football and semi-professional football.
But if Briles wants to be a college football coach, again be charged with developing young men, we need to hear far more from him than he has shared thus far He says that day will come. We’re waiting.
In order to entrust young men’s development to ex-coach, more must be known about his role in scandal at Baylor