For Briles, on-field success at Baylor proves no shield
School had no choice but to fire coach in sexual abuse scandal
In the end, there was no choice for Baylor.
The idea that Art Briles had amassed so many wins and so much power to dump this entire scandal on the doorstep of a bureaucrat, the notion that a university was so intoxicated by its sudden football success that anything could be excused, was ripped to shreds Thursday.
In a 13-page “Findings of Fact” report that was short on details but endless in its prosecution of the culture surrounding Briles’ program, one of the most improbable success stories in college football was reduced to smoldering ashes and shame.
Baylor built its success on the backs of players who put its students at risk. Its football coaches enabled those players, discouraged victims of sexual violence from coming forward and obstructed legitimate investigations. All the while, administrators at the university who should have known better did nothing to stop it.
Briles, the engineer of two Big 12 Conference titles at a former football wasteland, is gone. Athletics director Ian McCaw has been placed on probation. And school President Kenneth Starr has been stripped of his power. Good. As this scandal unfolded, a person with knowledge of the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter told USA TODAY Sports that none of the three was viewed as irreplaceable. In fact, that person said, the notion that Briles specifically was too big to fail was just flat wrong.
Yes, Briles had done enough on the field to gain a legion of dedicated supporters. But it was not as if those who truly matter at Baylor, a school that just 13 years ago went through a tragic basketball scandal, were so insecure about the future of the football program that Briles was untouchable. And now we see why. Even before Thursday, a picture of the Baylor culture had become fairly obvious. Report after report indicated that too many women had been turned into victims by Baylor football players with practically no consequences.
In many cases, the accusations never turned into legal charges, a conundrum every coach faces in a “guilty until proved innocent” society. But the volume of them at Baylor, and the specific nature of the police reports uncovered by ESPN and other media outlets, indicated something much more sinister. Now we know what it was. According to the report released Thursday, Baylor coaches “conducted their own untrained internal inquires, outside of policy, which improperly discredited complainants and denied them a right to a fair, impartial and informed investigation.”
Additionally, “Athletics personnel failed to recognize the conflict of interest in roles and risk to campus safety by insulating athletes from student conduct proc- esses” while “football coaches and staff took affirmative steps to maintain internal control over discipline of players and to actively divert cases from the student conduct or criminal processes.”
In other words, if the alleged victims never pressed charges, the football players never had to be disciplined. And the wins for Baylor could go on and on and on.
It is as disturbing an indictment as has ever been levied against a football power. This wasn’t about one monster running rampant; it was about a culture sanctioned by the coach, his assistants and other administrators indicating that if players ever ran afoul of a woman’s right to say no, they would be backstopped by the influence of the biggest game in town.
That simply can’t happen. But it did at Baylor for years and years while Briles’ program became the darling of the Big 12 and a perennial national title contender.
Now that we know the truth, Briles’ dismissal Thursday wasn’t merely appropriate — it was way too late.