Art Briles is the public face of the Baylor Bears football program, and the head coach of a team that has risen to levels rarely seen in Waco, Texas. However, his program has come under a hailstorm of ugly reports and accusations as of late.
It has all culminated in a really tough decision for the University of Baylor Board of Regents, and apparently some are seriously considering recommending he be fired. This on the heels of an offseason of bad press and bad behavior by players associated with the Bears football program.
Those reports include some damning information on criminal behavior of multiple Baylor players, and a recent ESPN Outside the Lines report indicates things like football players assaulting other Baylor students, another sexual assault charge against a Baylor football player (which was not pursued but remains open) and more.
It also includes perhaps the most troubling part of all of this — an alleged police cover up of criminal behavior by members of the Baylor football program. Also in that allegation is the knowledge of people within the football program and administration.
According to the police documents, at least some Baylor officials, including coaches, knew about many of the incidents, and most players did not miss playing time for disciplinary reasons. None of the incidents has been widely reported in the media.
Just how bad did things get? Try a 2011 incident in which there was an off-campus assault that involved at least three players being charged. The rest is rather disturbing:
In one case from 2011, an assault at an off-campus event in Waco ended with three football players being charged and Baylor and Waco police discussing the incident. Waco police, according to documents, took extraordinary steps to keep it from the public view “given the potential high-profile nature of the incident.” According to a police report obtained by Outside the Lines, Waco’s investigating officer asked a commander that “the case be pulled from the computer system so that only persons who had a reason to inquire about the report would be able to access it.” The report was placed in a locked office.
Despite all of this, Baylor seems poised to keep Briles around according to a report in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
It’s a dilemma that columnist Mac Engel pens best:
But how does Baylor fire Art Briles? He is responsible for one of the most impressive college football turnarounds in the last 30 years at a school that loves football and has been dying to be a real player in this sport for decades.
Much like previous coaches with plenty of baggage around the program, will winning be enough to have Briles keep his job? Or will the PR nightmare and complete lack of control of the program off the field tip the scales towards him being fired?
Briles himself doesn’t seem too worried at the moment, tweeting out these academic stats and a flurry of hashtags.
https://twitter.com/CoachArtBriles/status/733425470205628416
We’ll see if that remains to be the case in the long-term.
