Apologies if this has been covered in another thread (and please merge/delete if so).
I wish I could say this surprised me.
What do you want us to say other than this is horrible? I don’t know what else there is to discuss, really.
If there’s nothing to discuss, then let the thread get buried. No big deal.
I posted it here in case anyone did want to discuss it or be aware of it.
How much backlash is this getting in Nashville? Does the Coach get fired?
I can almost give the coach credit for calling back and apologizing for calling him a traitor - but it seems to me that was too likely an insincere apology, especially when there is no discipline whatsoever to the other players who jumped him later.
Based on the complaint, Bowles should be held up as a hero, while at the very least, the others need some sensitivity training. But Bowles has transferred to another school.
Wow. If this did indeed happen as described, Bowles is a hero. The rest of them are scum.
Its probably getting a lot of backlash in Nashville. Knoxville, not so much.
The players who allegedly threatened and/or physically assaulted Bowles need to face serious legal consequences for their acts if they are found guilty as alleged.
It also looks like the police at UTK did their job and arrested the suspects.
UT is in Knoxville. It is the enemy school to many in Nashville. I am horrified by what appears to be a toxic athletic culture at UTenn and by the cluelessness of the AD and administration. It is all over my Twitter feed and our news. Coach Jones denies saying any of that. The UT coaches ( all of them- men and women) held a press conference yesterday and it made things worse.
@MomofWildChild out of curiosity, was it big news when these two players were arrested last year? I don’t remember hearing anything about it but a lot of times these things just fly under my radar.
http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2016/02/24/timeline-sexual-assault-incidents-ut/80851274/
7 football players and 1 basketball player were accused of sexual assault from 2013-2016.
- 1 was found, "by a preponderance of evidence, to have violated student standards by committing sexual assault" in a university disciplinary hearing.
- 1 went to university disciplinary hearing, but university dropped the charges midway and eventually found the incident "consensual".
- 2 [the ones suspected in this incident] were arrested and charged with aggravated rape and are awaiting trial.
- 1 was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and false imprisonment and is awaiting trial.
- 3 had cases (going through police/DA/courts) dropped after victims did not want to go forward or cooperate with police.
In addition, 1 more football player was arrested in a child sex sting and is awaiting trial for sending material harmful to a minor and using a computer for a prohibited purpose.
Of the sexual assault victims, 5 were students at the university; 4 left and 1 was dismissed after her grades dropped afterward.
It seems that wherever these things happen, the knee jerk reaction of many people is to protect the team and the University. As long as the benefits of covering it up are larger than the expected cost of getting caught, this will continue to happen.
When school employees work to cover up illegal activity, the school needs to be penalized in some way. When the cost is high enough, then employees will decide that the best thing to do to protect the school is to report incidents immediately.
I think we can all agree that committing sexual assault in a university disciplinary hearing is crossing the line.
The coach does not come across good or even plausible in his denial yesterday. His comments seem like a PR spin job.
If no discipline was given to the other team members (Maggit, Orta and Lane) for their behavior, then the coach has to be held responsible.
Perhaps they are simply hoping another big story will come along and divert our atte… squirrel.
^^I think this IS the diversion from the Peyton Manning story.
Time for a Jerry Sandusky-type of investigation to be imposed upon UTK. And yes, I am all for firing the coach. It’s nearly as bad as the Baylor basketball coach who tried to cover-up a murder by a player.
If the allegations are true Jones is a very bad guy. What a horrible role model. So Bowles assists a young woman crying in the bushes and accompanies her to the hospital. In response he gets punched by a teammate, degraded by his coach and has to transfer schools. Meanwhile Jones is still collecting his 4.1 million dollar annual salary.
UT players are arrested so frequently that I’m not sure how big of news it was last year regarding these particular two. It is a terrible culture, although the latest basketball coach (came from the other UT) is a good guy.
From reading what Jones and others said at the news conference, not one of them stated that this type of behavior would not be tolerated or that players would be held to a high standard (unless i missed it). They only talked about how great the programs are, that there is no culture problem, and how great the kids are, not even mentioning that some of the “kids” have gotten into trouble. Feeling for the victims without trying to stop future behavior is meaningless. Meanwhile all of women have left school or are having academic trouble. I would hope UTenn would make some changes, starting with the football coach.
The general thinking (press etc) is that the press conference was a real disaster for the reasons you pointed out. It did not promise any changes and barely mentioned the victims.
I am a big college sports fan, and I know this problem is not unique to UTenn, but this cover up is just terrible. I feel like football has a big culture problem at many schools - more than the other major sports (although things happen in all the sports). We’ve been talking about why that is. Thoughts are the violent nature of the game, the large rosters, the high social status of the players at their high schools and colleges…