MICHIGAN STATE.
Why college sports’ most shameful list has a new member
Acouple years back, Michigan State did a promotional series of commercials. You know the kind. They run during breaks in nationally televised games and promote the competing schools.
These Michigan State spots asked a simple question — "Who will?" Spartans will.
But when it came to protecting dozens of female athletes, listening to pleas for help and stopping a predator pedophile masquerading as a doctor, Spartans didn't.
Spartans wouldn't.
During the past week or so, the sports world has come to understand the horror perpetuated by Larry Nassar, the former team doctor for Michigan State and USA Gymnastics. He pled guilty in November to 10 counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, and on Wednesday, he was sentenced to 40 to 175 years
in prison.
No punishment seems severe enough because during his sentencing, the depths of his depravity were evident in the sometimes tearful, sometimes stonefaced but always strong victim's impact statements. There were more than 150 girls and women who stood up and said Nassar abused them. Me, too, they said. He preyed on dozens and dozens of gymnasts, including some of the most decorated ones the world has ever known. He preyed on athletes who played a variety of sports at Michigan State. He preyed on girls and women who trusted that he had their best interests at heart when they came to him for medical treatment but who were abused instead.
One of the women who spoke during sentencing called him a monster.
Frankly, no descriptor
is harsh enough.
But the same can be said of multiple people at Michigan State.
Hard-hitting but gutwrenching reporting by the Detroit News uncovered that during the two decades Nassar worked for the school, at least eight athletes reported sexual misconduct by the doctor. What's more, at least 14 representatives of Michigan State knew of the reports — including school president Lou Anna Simon, who announced her resignation Wednesday night.
Did they handle those reports properly? Did they look deeper into the issue? Did they protect girls and women who they were at the very least morally obligated to look out for? Spartans didn't. And there needs to be a reckoning.
The NCAA has announced it will investigate Michigan State. No doubt it should. Federal officials may follow suit because of how sexual assault on college campuses must be reported under Title IX.
Here's hoping heads roll.
They need to roll. How could so many have been harmed so badly over so long a period by one man? How was he allowed to remain an employee of Michigan State?
All of this makes us think of Penn State and Baylor, of course. Two vastly different situations, and yet, both involved wide-ranging cover-ups that lasted for years and led the victimization of many.
The same can be said of Michigan State.
School officials and representatives are now trying to smooth over what has happened. Athletic director Mark Hollis issued a statement early Wednesday.
"Since my first day on the job as athletic director, my focus has always been on the student-athlete," he said in part. "They are at the core of our athletic department mission statement.
"Our first priority has always been and will always be their health and safety."
His words say one thing. The actions of Michigan State say quite another, actions both past and present.
Larissa Boyce is believed to be the first victim of Nassar's abuse to come forward, according to the Detroit News. But when she said Nassar had put his fingers in her vagina during a treatment session, then-Michigan State gymnastics coach Kathie Klages told Boyce there must have been a misunderstanding of what was going on. When another gymnast said Nassar had done the same thing to her, Klages told the girls that filing a report would have serious repercussions not only for Nassar but also for them.
The gymnasts said they felt intimidated and humiliated and told Klages, who is now retired, that they didn't want to pursue anything.
That first report of abuse was in 1997.
Imagine how this story might've been different if Nassar had been stopped then. That was more than 20 years ago. Think about how many women might not have been victimized.
And yet, just as it was then, the actions of Michigan State leaders now indicate they still don't think this is a big deal.
Simon, the school president, didn't show up at Nassar's sentencing until there was a public outcry, and even then, she only went for half a day. Where is the support for so many of the school's alumni who stood up in front of that courtroom and admitted to some of the deepest, darkest pain imaginable? Where is the empathy? Where is the compassion?
Is there any?
You have to wonder after hearing what Michigan State trustee Joel Ferguson said on a Lansing radio show earlier this week. He said that at a meeting of the board last week, only "10 minutes" was spent discussing Nassar. Why?
"There’s so many more things going on at the university than just this Nassar thing," Ferguson said.
"Just this Nassar thing"?
How tone deaf can you be? How uncaring and heartless and insensitive?
Apparently, extremely unkind, because when asked why he still supported Simon when others have called for her ouster, Ferguson said, "I mean, when you go to the basketball game, you walk into the new Breslin [Center], and the person who hustled and got all those major donors to give money was Lou Anna Simon."
So, to paraphrase, "Yay, glitzy, fancy basketball arena! Who cares about dozens of female athletes who were molested and assaulted and violated again and again and again!"
These people are disgusting.
Ferguson laughed when asked if the NCAA would get involved.
"To do what?" he said. "This is not Penn State."
But Michigan State is every bit as bad. It was ground zero for arguably the worst sexual assault scandal in United States sports history. It was the place where Larry Nassar was allowed to grow into a serial abuser.
It was the sanctuary for a monster.
On the school's website, the "About Us" section begins with these words: "Michigan State University Spartans work every day to advance the common good in uncommon ways. Together we tackle some of the world’s toughest problems to find solutions that make life better."
Where Larry Nassar was involved, the Spartans didn't do that for decades. What will they do now? Who will hold accountable the enablers? Who will show love and compassion toward the victims? Who will do everything in their power to make sure this never happens again, even if it means cleaning house and refocusing priorities to truly "advance the common good"? Who will? Spartans will? Right now, that only sounds like a tired old ad slogan.