Art Briles is back in college football, and no matter how hard anyone at Grambling State tries, this is a decision that cannot be explained away.
The way Grambling State's athletic director is attempting to do that is not right.
Trayvean Scott said he was "rooted in fact" in defending his decision to hire Briles as the football team's new offensive coordinator, a statement that seems to indicate the opposite. Scott should read up on the man he is welcoming into his university.
Briles was fired as head coach of the football team in 2016 after an investigation by law firm Pepper Hamilton revealed that the program was above the rules and that there was no culture of accountability.
While Briles was taking the program to unprecedented heights, at least 52 rapes by more than 30 football players happened over a four-year period.
When allegations were brought to Briles or others inside the football program, Pepper Hamilton found that the choices made by football staff and athletics leadership posed a risk to campus safety and the integrity of the University. In certain instances, including reports of a sexual assault by multiple football players, athletics and football personnel affirmatively chose not to report it to an administrator outside of athletics.
Again, Briles was the coach tasked with setting that tone and culture.
You report what you know. Briles told KTAL-TV that they did the best they could at the time.
I am sorry for anyone that was affected by it.
Ian McCaw and Briles are still being sued. Alex Zalkin said that the defendants have filed motions to dismiss the case. The court hasn't made a ruling. The case would go to trial if those motions are denied.
After Briles was hired, Zalkin said it was tempting to dismiss what happened at the school. A jury is going to decide if he was negligent in the way in which he ran his football team, which caused multiple women to be subjected to sexual assault and domestic violence. Those are serious allegations. I don't understand how a program could hire him knowing that the lawsuit is still pending, and that a jury may eventually find that.
As a result of what happened under Briles watch, the NCAA has placed the Bears on NCAA watch.
Briles and his supporters have claimed exoneration because the NCAA committee on infractions could not conclude that Briles and his team violated NCAA rules by failing to report allegations of sexual and interpersonal violence committed on the campus. Even though there is no finding of NCAA rules violations, Briles is still responsible for the way he put women on campus at risk.
In the 51-page NCAA committee on infractions report released in August 2021, the committee said this about Briles: His incurious attitude toward potential criminal conduct by his student-athletes was deeply troubling to the panel.
The head coach failed to meet even the most basic expectations of how a person should react to conduct like that. The head coach is held to a higher standard as a campus leader. He failed to meet this standard.
It makes you wonder if anyone at Grambling checked with women on its campus to see how they feel about Briles representing the university or the message that hiring him sends to survivors. Did anyone at Grambling reach out to anyone involved in the case other than Briles, a man who has apologized but never really taken full responsibility for his actions?
A spokesman for Grambling State did not return a request for comment.
"For the survivor, it's not just about the perpetrators, it's about the entire community," said Tracy, a sexual assault survivor and founder of Set the Expectation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending sexual and interpersonal violence through prevention and advocacy work. This is how things happen. It will never stop if we continue to have cultures and people that allow this type of violence. Ever.
Scott said in defense of the hire that Grambling State has given Briles another chance. Scott said that it was appropriate to give him a chance to redeem himself after understanding where the facts lie.
Briles has pushed and prodded to get back into the college game since he was dismissed from Baylor, and this return to the sport has been six years in the making. After coaching American football in Italy, he was hired to coach at Mount Vernon High School in Texas.
The response feels different. Briles didn't get the jobs at Southern Miss and the Canadian Football League because of the public and internal backlash. The outcry has not forced anyone at Grambling to change their minds.
Doug Williams is a two-time Black College Player of the Year, the first Black quarterback to start and win a Super Bowl, and a former coach at his alma mater. The people in charge of the hiring process were unaffected by his outrage. Before the hire was made, Williams had conversations with Scott and Gallot.
Williams told John Keim that he was having a problem with it because other schools would not hire Briles. I can not support it. That hurt my core. Eddie Robinson is turning over his job right now.
Eddie Robinson's record at Grambling is just one of the things he did in 55 seasons. His dedication to winning and developing his players the right way made him more than a football coach. It made him a titan, revered and honored, with awards named for him and a museum on the Grambling campus in his honor.
Eddie Robinson is the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year. During the awards banquet last month, the winner of the 2021, Cincinnati coach spoke about how important it was to him to be connected with Robinson and how he wanted to positively impact his players.
Eddie Robinson III said that preserving his grandfather's legacy was one of his main priorities. We all know that Grambling is not something you can weigh. Doug Williams followed in the footsteps of Eddie Robinson. What do you think about that? I do not have anything against Briles. We're Grambling.
The same school that Robinson represented seems to be taking a different path. It is sending a message if you win it comes with a moral or ethical cost.
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