Ex- Baylor coach Briles can keep his empty apology

The Art Briles Apology Tour began Saturday, and it lacked a rather important piece: a genuine understanding of what he was apologizing for.

Briles, in an ESPN interview, appeared to realize that he needed to apologize for something in order to be back in the mix for a head coaching gig next season. But he didn’t say what he was apologizing for, nor did he seem to understand the seriousness and life- changing effects of the violence against women perpetrated by his players at Baylor.

Or the fact that people within the football program discouraged victims from reporting crimes and that football players felt they lived above the law, as the Pepper Hamilton report concluded.

Briles also — infuriatingly — suggested that 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.”

The idea that sexual assault victims would want to have “a good cry session” with this man is insulting to all sexual assault victims who live each day as survivors.

Earlier this summer, Brenda Tracy, who was gang- raped by four men, including two Oregon State football players, in 1998, met with the coach who suspended those players each for one game and said they made “a bad choice.”

That coach, whom Tracy said she “at one point hated more than my rapists,” is Mike Riley, now at Nebraska. It took 16 years for Tracy to speak publicly about the night that caused so much guilt, shame and sent her into depression. It took 18 years for her to face Riley.

So forgive me if I don’t think the Baylor victims will be lining up for hugs.

Or coming anywhere near Briles, who at first punted his chance to take responsibility for the actions of his players, saying that the responsibility falls on the individuals who committed those acts. Only when pressed during the interview did he say he felt responsibility for the players in his program because of how they reflect the school, the team and Briles himself.

This is the same man who, three weeks ago, told reporters, “I’ve never done anything illegal, immoral, unethical.”

Those advising Briles have told him, it seems, to soften that stance and say what he thinks he needs to say so he’s back on the market and likely back on a sideline next fall.

But in order for an apology to actually serve its purpose, it needs to convey some understanding of the wrongdoing that prompted the apology.

Briles whiffed on that count.

RAY CARLIN, USA TODAY SPORTS When the scandal broke, then- Baylor coach Art Briles initially denied any wrongdoing in how he handled accusations of sexual assault against his players.