Nebraska head coach Mike Riley

At a time when the sports world is littered with headlines regarding acts of domestic violence and sexual assault off the football field, Nebraska head coach Mike Riley finally worked out a time and place to deliver on a promise to share a unique perspective with his players in Lincoln. Riley invited Brenda Tracy, a survivor of gang-rape by four men at Oregon State, to share her story with Nebraska’s football program. Two of the men that raped Tracy were Oregon State football players coached by Riley.

For the longest time, Tracy despised Riley, and nobody could blame her given the information learned about her case. The four men who committed the vile act were arrested but never charged. Riley ended up suspending his players for just one game. On one hand, no charges against his players left Riley in an awkward spot as disciplinarian, but Tracy held back no punches. After all these years, Tracy — now a registered nurse and activist out to help spread awareness about domestic and sexual violence —  finally got a chance to meet Riley for a private one-on-one conversation to address the decision-making in the suspension. According to a report from USA Today, Tracy accepted Riley’s reasoning;

Riley told her he knew that his players had been arrested, released and that the charges had been dropped. He felt he had to implement some sort of punishment, which resulted in the suspension. He said he didn’t read the police report and did not know details beyond what the arrests were for.

Tracy said she believes Riley.

While addressing Riley’s Nebraska players, Tracy alluded to her hatred for the Huskers head coach before ultimately praising him for bringing her to Nebraska’s campus for a chance to share her perspective to young football players.

“I told them, ‘At one point I hated this man more than my rapists,’ ” Tracy told a small group of reporters Wednesday evening.

“You could literally see the whole room turn and look at Coach Riley. … It was intense. I saw them all look. I could feel it. Not too long after that, I started talking about the idea that he didn’t have to bring me here. Even under those circumstances, he didn’t have to bring me here. This is what accountability looks like. This is what transparency looks like. This is how we get things done, and (they) should be appreciative that they have a coach like this as their mentor, their example of how to deal with something like this.”

Tracy’s message to the players was it is OK to admit when something bad happens, and it may be a message that every college athlete should hear at one point or another. Heck, it is a message pro athletes should listen to as well.

“We talked about how it’s OK to say sorry. It’s OK to be accountable. It’s OK to stand up and say, ‘I didn’t do something right,’ or ‘I did something wrong,’ and move on from there. Sometimes when you wrong another person, all they really want is an apology.”

Riley also commented on the meeting.

Said Riley in a statement released Wednesday night: “As part of our ongoing educational efforts, I invited Brenda Tracy to Lincoln, to share her experiences with the young men in our program.  Brenda has suffered immeasurable pain and has shown the strength and willingness to share her story. Her story today was powerful and I know that it left an indelible imprint on our student-athletes, staff and myself.”

Here’s to hoping Tracy’s message resonates with the Nebraska football players and staff, and hopefully this will open more doors for Tracy’s message to be heard around the sports world.

[USA Today, College Football Talk]

About Kevin McGuire

Contributor to Athlon Sports and The Comeback. Previously contributed to NBCSports.com. Host of the Locked On Nittany Lions Podcast. FWAA member and Philadelphia-area resident.