Baylor says Art Briles, Ian McCaw failed to report 2012 sexual assault
The already abhorrent Baylor Bears football scandal only gets worse with another instance of sexual assault that wasn’t reported.
In the middle of a fantastic college football season, a black mark in the form of the Baylor Bears has been ever present. The scandal from the Art Briles era and the deplorable behavior of the football program under his watch worsens each week. Unfortunately, that trend didn’t get bucked heading into this week.
On Friday night, Baylor released a statement saying that Briles and athletic director Ian McCaw failed to report 2012 allegations that five football players had sexual assaulted a female athlete, per ESPN’s Mark Schlabach. The release from the school states that the alleged victim told her coach of the assault in 2013, saying that the incident took place a year prior. After the coach then went to Briles and McCaw, though, the football coach and athletic director did not take the incident to judicial affairs.
As if that wasn’t reprehensible enough, this is also in stark contrast to what Baylor assistant football coaches said in a statement released last week. The assistants, with Briles’ son and son-in-law among them, said that Art Briles handled the matter and talked to the female athlete accusing the players, but that she did not want to report the incident to police. Sadly, that appears to all be a fabrication as the police and judicial affair office have no records of the alleged gang rape being reported.
Everything that continues to come out about Baylor and the football program under Briles is sickening. The former coach and McCaw put winning games ahead of humanity and morality. The fact that assistants, players, and boosters have still talked of bringing Art Briles back is unthinkable. He should not be allowed to coach anywhere by the NCAA after this.
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What’s more, Baylor needs to absolutely rid themselves of the Briles regime. They need a new coaching staff from top-to-bottom in the football program and need to get rid of McCaw. This scandal can’t go unpunished and they have to take the proper measures to move past it as a football team.