Robert Wilson said:
drahthaar said:
GruntTuff said:
drahthaar said:
Thee University said:
Bear51 said:
Stranger said:
GruntTuff said:
It's so fun to watch the frustration in the body language of the OU players and the sideline anger of the OU coaches. They knew that they were toast.
And yes, the championships won by the Bears during Briles' tenure included having UT and OU as competitors.
Try as they can, the Briles detractors cannot take away his joy at coaching again. For him, I believe it feels a bit like coaching back in high school. None of his opposition has any money...ENMU sure doesn't. It's who can find the diamonds in the rough, coach them and give them a system.
It might not happen this year (but I wouldn't be surprised to see the Greyhounds be successful really quick), but by next year none of his opponents will look forward to playing them.
Good write-up. I don't know about you but Baylor still pisses me off the way they treated him.
Art still pisses me off the way he treated Baylor. He tarred and feathered us before he was stopped from literally driving a stake in our heart. It did not have to go down that way. He feathered his nest and then pooped in it. The AD & Prez let him do it. They are the primary enablers to blame. They were afraid of exhibiting some much needed tough love. Perhaps they got high on their own supply?
"Perhaps"?
The "Prez" refused to establish a Title IX office because he was politically opposed to the concept. He allowed his personal beliefs to control his actions as president. He had a duty to Baylor to comply with the law, even if he opposed it. He could have (1) complied and then (2) convinced the board/regents to file suit and use whatever political stroke they had, to get the law changed. Instead, he just ignored the law. Had Baylor had a fully functioning Title IX office AND proper training for all department heads, professors, coaches, administrators, etc. Baylor would not have become the poster child for stupidity. Remember, that the problem was UNIVERSITY WIDE. Art Briles was/is smart enough to do what he's told and he would have followed the rules. The AD was a wimp, and he also would have followed the rules. The problem was.....there WERE NO RULES! The blame falls 100% on the "Prez" and the folks in control....who also didn't like the concept of Title IX, and let their political leanings interfere with their fiduciary duty to Baylor. If Baylor had laid down "the law" as they should have, the university wide problem would never have existed in the first place. Failure of leadership in the highest degree.
That is exactly how I understood the issue from the get-go.
As I referenced in an earlier comment, the "management" of the failed admin was shouldered by the BOR and insider influencers. Starr utterly failed to bring BU into compliance with the law. He of all people should have knowingly taken the position of changing bad law rather than defying said law. If the Prez refuses to comply, the governance board is then responsible for corrective action, the first step being establishing compliance guidelines and training. Even if both admin and governance principles fail the university, then the AD and head coaches are responsible for behavioral management of their students on just grounds, even if there is no university compliance. Choosing the "ignorance" defense has shredded university relationships at every level. It will take several generations to get beyond this strife. And while much of the truth of its origins is known, no "repentance" seems forthcoming.
100%
The loss of capital in terms of relationships, legacy students, future giving cannot be quantified, but it's huge. And, without some form of "repentance" or at least acknowledgment, it remains.
"The past is never dead. It's not even past," as WF so eloquently wrote.
Reconciliation is a fever dream: there's no way to 'repent' here, because many* of the same VIPs who loved and supported Art also loved and supported Ken Starr. Thus many of the same people who've allegedly withheld donations over the 'injustice' they believe that Art suffered were totally enthralled by the ultimate architect of the whole ****show, Ken Starr.
Are any of the still-aggrieved donors (who are big enough fish to have real influence on the BOR then and now), are they going to apologize to Art and everyone else for all the trust
they placed in Ken Starr? Seems unlikely.
The Manichean dichotomy of Good Guys vs Bad Guys (or Geniuses vs Idiots, whatever dyadic framing you want to use go for it)...that's just a fiction. The Scandal was a factional cluster**** that did have a few 'innocent' victims but neither Ken Starr nor Art Briles** fit that bill.
___
*most? all?!? may well have been every single one of them and it was definitely the majority.
**again for the record, Art's great sin was trusting the leadership and his own staff rather than seeing
his program's accountability as
his purview. Offload a responsibility and you're still responsible for the outcomes. Art's not a Bad Guy, and he's definitely a legendary football coach. But he too played a part in everything that went wrong and that's why he was an easy scapegoat for Starr and BOR in trying to deflect from Starr's university-imperiling decisions regarding the Dear Colleague Title IX bull*****
