NFL
By: Zachary Draves
Four days after he was hired as the offensive coordinator for Grambling State University football, Art Briles has officially resigned.
In a statement to ESPN he said “I feel that my continued presence will be a distraction…which is the last thing that I want.”
The fact of the matter is that the former disgraced head coach shouldn’t have been selected for a coaching position in the first place especially at a storied HBCU such as Grambling State that has produced legends like the late great coach Eddie Robinson.
The reason being is that during his tenure at Baylor University from 2008-2016, the football program was rampant with cases of sexual violence.
An August 2021 NCAA probe found that while Briles didn’t violate NCAA rules he nevertheless failed to do his duty and didn’t take these cases seriously as a university employee should.
The 51 page report stated that Briles “incurious attitude toward potential criminal conduct by his student-athletes was deeply troubling to the panel. (He) failed to meet even the most basic expectation of how a person should react to the kind of conduct at issue in this case. Furthermore, as a campus leader, the head coach is held to an even higher standard. He completely failed to meet this standard.”
In January 2017, a former Baylor University graduate student filed a lawsuit saying that she was raped by two Baylor University football players in 2013 and that over a four year period 52 rapes were committed by 30 players.
The lawsuit described a “culture of sexual violence” within the program.
After an investigation by the law firm Pepper Hamilton, hired by the University, founded that Baylor grossly mishandled cases of sexual violence, Briles was fired in 2016.
The notorious former Baylor President Ken Starr resigned and Athletic Director Ian McCaw was put on probation.
After his termination, Briles shamefully was able to find other coaching positions in Italy, a high school in Texas, and in the Canadian Football League but righteous indignation kicked him to the curb again and again.
This is not a good look for Grambling State Head Coach Hue Jackson.
The question begs why would he want to hire Briles given that he has shown himself to be someone who cannot be trusted?
Furthermore, Briles is not someone who should be mentoring a group of young men particularly in the #MeToo era where we are starting to have a long overdue reckoning with gender based violence which includes a reexamination of how we define healthy masculinity.
This speaks to the larger issue of what seems to matter in the glitzy glamour world of college sports.
“Unfortunately, the pursuit of money and winning continues to matter more than the welfare and safety of campus communities” said Brenda Tracy, survivor and founder of the Set the Expectation Campaign.
She also said that college athletics needs to do a better job at addressing the issue.
“The state of college athletics hasn’t changed much as it relates to sexual violence and violence against women – especially in college football” she said.
“There are glimmers of hope and there are some programs and coaches making concerted efforts to do the right thing, but these glimmers can’t sustain the much needed change that results in survivors being supported and perpetrators being held accountable.”
In the end, there are plenty who are worthy of second chances who have been afflicted by injustice and discrimination, Art Briles is not one of those people.
He and Baylor University failed survivors and in the long term he should not be anywhere near a college campus.
His resignation is a small but significant win for survivors of sexual violence and their allies who kept up the pressure.
Any victory is worth celebrating and sometimes they matter more off the field.
If you need immediate support relating to sexual assault, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800.656.HOPE (4673) to be connected with a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area.
