@59,
Agree but Switzer’s program was only out of control at the end when he figured if he was going to skirt chase 24/7 he shouldn’t bother to monitor what his players did either (and he let his staff ignore it too). But, for a long time there, Switzer actually ran a good football program in terms of getting good players and coaching them well and demanding at least as much discipline as was needed to win the next week.
@GoNoles85 , having discipline to win and off-the-field behavior are two different things.
Switzer ran a dirty program even by Division 1 standards. He was a bad guy.
My brother sent three kids there, all National Merit and liberal. Eldest one is a physician and her brothers are lawyers.
They love their school and school served them well. Their take is that it if you don’t go to frat parties and hang with football players then Baylor is perfectly safe for you. It shouldn’t have happened and Baylor didn’t handle those complaints well. They should’ve taken strong steps. However, this which-hunt to ruin Baylor is injustice to thousands of students, teachers, parents and alumni, who have nothing to do with this. Sexual assaults are very common on college campuses and we need to come up with better policies to protect female students. There should be no cover up and cases should be reported to law enforcement agencies. Athletic programs in general need an overhaul. We as a society must stop treating athletes as gods.
^ good post @SugarlessCandy.
@SugarlessCandy It’s not a witch hunt to ruin the program. It’s to punish students who are raping women. Let’s not act as if 50 rapes over 4 years for ONE sports team is common place throughout the NCAA. It is not.
I’m all for punishing rapists and administrators who try to protect them. However, I’m not for any collateral damage to innocent students, teachers and alumni. I want a shift of culture to colleges being a safe sanctuary for every student.
@SugarlessCandy - I want a shift of culture as well. I am not for collateral damage to other students, and there is a legitimate concern that the continuing denial of the seriousness of the allegations within the athletic department, among other coaches, will CREATE more collateral damage to innocent students. The same attitudes that led to this terrible environment/culture will permit other preventable tragedies to occur.
If firing whole athletic departments at these colleges can solve this issue then do that. I don’t see that as a productive solution. In my opinion colleges should only offer intramural sports, competitive/professional level athletes should play at sports clubs. All these concussions, free tuition and royalty status are knocking humanity out of young heads.
Would I send my daughters to Baylor? Of Course. Baylor is very progressive and empowering for women. And the numbers show that too, 60% women. Personally, I think anyone picking a college should walk around the college and simply ask people if they would recommend it and why.
@3puppies I think Baylor looks worse as a university without punishment. The culture won’t change without punishment. The NCAA wouldn’t be at fault for any collateral damage to the other student. The people at fault are the rapists and the staff that let them continue to abuse women.
@CollegeWizard16 A university that has a school sanctioned program that basically prostitutes female students is a university that “empowers women”? Baylor is literally everything that is wrong with how colleges handle sexual assault. I really can’t think of a university that models rape culture across college campuses better than Baylor does.
Btw, the Baylor AD who “presided” over this - Ian McCaw - was recently hired as AD at Liberty University
So he’s still employable, the Baylor name apparently didn’t hurt him…
^^ He’s probably very happy to move to a uni that keeps the boyz and girlz away from each other after hours and doesn’t allow alcohol consumption.
Your painting with awfully broad brush strokes don’t you think? You make statements about schools sanctioning programs that basically prostitute female students without regard for really thinking about the reality of the situations and circumstances involved. The programs that many football schools use to have female students greet jocks while being recruited isn’t sanctioned prostitution. It isn’t completely innocent either. Certainly, as with other things, there are abuses that can and do happen. But, if you only see things as black or white you miss a whole lot of gray that might be in front of you.
The hostess programs are mostly staffed by girls who have pure intentions. That might sound shocking to you. It might shock you to know that most interactions between the hostesses and the jocks are properly supervised and nothing shady happens. It certainly doesn’t fit into the drum you are beating about rape culture. It also might shock you to know that the vast majority of jocks, lets say football players since they are the ones who got Baylor in trouble, are normal young men. They are not rapists. They do not abuse or take advantage of women. Most of them are normal young men. They face more temptations that normal young men do and some of them are bad apples no question about it.
My point of view is that we do have laws and a justice system in this country and the guilty parties need to be brought to justice and that will prevent future incidents. That probably sounds hopelessly clueless and quant to you but I am not looking at just Baylor. Baylor is one data point and Baylor’s problems lasted a few years not forever. I am not trying to diminish it all, I am just saying don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
GoNoles- I respect and appreciate your point of view and admire the way you communicated it in post 72. But I vociferously object to the use of the word “temptation”.
That’s the problem.
This is the mindset of the Catholic Church and the sexual abuse of children; this is the mindset of those who turn a blind eye towards the rape of teenagers in prison. I won’t bore you with the details.
The issue is not “temptation”. You are talking about young men engaging in criminal activity-- and to use the word “temptation” is to normalize it- like I’m on a strict diet but when I walk past my local bakery I am tempted because I smell chocolate donuts. Do you think it’s “temptation” when someone robs a bank because after all- all that cash is just sitting there and I was tempted? Do you think it’s “temptation” when a prison guard rapes a 13 year old? Do you think it’s “temptation” when someone burns down their own apartment building because the insurance is more than what the building is worth (and the fact that an elderly tenant dies trying to get out- that’s just an inconvenient reality to “temptation”.)
Way back as college freshmen, my friends and I received priceless advice from our older RA. She wouldn’t let us be part of a satin-jacket wearing hostess squad for the baseball team, hang out with the football players, or go to frat house parties alone. (The football players had their own dorm back then.) We had no idea what the potential traps were at our college.
I also thank God I’m not a drinker and could get my friend out of a frat house after she drank “Hairy Buffalo Punch” made with grain alcohol. I tell my teens that story and shiver to think what would have happened to my friend if I had just left her there. It is bad enough that women don’t get justice, but please do share what you know to protect others.
I appreciate your civil tone and reply on point also. I didn’t say temptation as in the jocks can rape whomever they please and NO I am not talking about rapists. I am talking about the majority of jocks who do not rape or even need to rape. This might sound shocking but some women enjoy the company of jocks and that has been true going all the way back to the times of the gladiators. Jocks do face more temptations and more willing partners that normal young men do. That is not a statement about rape which is when the partner is unwilling (obviously).
Or, thanks to the jock culture, they believe they have more willing partners than “normal” young men do. It’s the same jock culture that teaches them they don’t have to wait in line at the hospital…“don’t you know who I am”.
Most jocks do not rape. Most jocks are normal young men. It doesn’t matter what the campus culture is rape is against the law and never acceptable.
Most normal young men know that and believe it or not some men on campus, who are not jocks, therefore don’t have any of the sense of entitlement jocks might have, also rape. Rape is an act of violence against women (or men) and you don’t have to be a jock to rape.
I doubt seriously the rates of rape are much higher for jocks as they are for the general student population which throws a bit of water on your theory about how campus culture somehow gives the jocks permission to rape. The jocks that do rape do not do it because of campus culture, IMHO, they do it for the same reasons that other men rape. Blaming jock culture isn’t the right answer because men should know, regardless of campus culture, that rape is not okay.
What happened at Baylor is that some of the jocks were committing rapes and other crimes against women and getting away with it for the sake of winning games. That is outrageous and anyone who committed the rapes or covered it up should face the legal consequences. I think we all agree on that. But, again, the vast majority of jocks do not rape. Punish the ones who do. Punish the administrators that didn’t handle the reports properly. Punish the cops who didn’t investigate it properly. Fine. But no need to punish the 99% of the other people at Baylor or any other campus. Get to the root of the problem by punishing the guilty parties. Blaming “campus culture” in anything other than an extreme case like Baylor’s is mumbo jumbo because rape is never acceptable.
“It doesn’t matter what the campus culture is …”
@GoNoles85 , I know where you were going with this, but even considering your technical point about rape being against the law, it really and truly does matter what the campus (or other organizational) culture is. When the culture is rape-permissive, when the culture encourages young egos to think that the world, and everyone in it, is their personal playground, when that happens, rape happens more than it does when the culture feeds a different perspective.
So, to put the point to bed, nobody is (or should) advocate blowing up Baylor University. But when bad **** happens, the people who allow it to happen need to roll, and sometimes when it’s bad enough, those who set the tone at the top need to roll too.
It happens in corporate America, it happens in politics, and it should happen in academia as well. People are sending their kids to these places and in so doing are entrusting them, as organizations, to make the place as safe as reasonably practicable. Not Fort Knox, but reasonably safe from this kind of crap.
“I doubt seriously the rates of rape are much higher for jocks as they are for the general student population …”
And I seriously doubt your doubt, particularly at big-time football schools at which the players are minor deities. But I have no proof to cite.
You are talking about the outliers that take advantage of the permissive culture or don’t care one way or the other. I am talking about the other 99% of jocks. The outliers are the bad apples. They might take their cues from the permissive culture. I don’t like pampered, entitled, spoiled jocks either. Never have and never will.
However, a normal young man doesn’t care what the culture is, permissive or otherwise, a normal young man knows that rape can ruin his life as well as seriously harm another human being’s life. A normal young man, who happens to be a good enough athlete to get a D1 full ride, knows right from wrong. These are the 99%. The bad apples are the 1%. The bad apples are going to be bad regardless of the permissive culture and the other 99% are going to be about what the regular student body is. In an EXTREME case like Baylor’s the discussion of rape culture makes sense. It is just mumbo jumbo in most other cases because it doesn’t address the root causes it just makes excuses for bad behavior as it is wasn’t the actions of a human being it was the bogey man rape culture causing the deviant behavior.