America at Large: Morality in short supply at college where God and football rules

UNITED STATES
Irish Times

Dave Hannigan

Six years after taking over at Baylor University, Art Briles was earning $5 million a season, the inflated salary reflecting how he had transformed the Texan college into a national powerhouse and become one of the most coveted coaches in gridiron.

During that time, 19 of the players who made his reputation on the field were accused of sexually assaulting female students off it, including four cases of gang rape. In at least one of those instances, Briles received a full report about the incident but chose not to go to the police. Welcome to the corner of the sporting world where the moral compass points only towards the scoreboard.

After a Philadelphia law firm delivered a report into the litany of allegations surrounding the team back in May, Briles addressed the college’s board of regents about the scandal. At one point, as he struggled to explain how such a culture of rampant sexual violence was allowed to flourish in his locker room, he burst into tears.

Bizarrely, the sight of him crying caused some of those on the other side of the table, his supposed higher-ups, to well up too. Then, he quoted scripture, always a canny move in a college founded by the Texas Baptist Education Society in 1844, and a place that prides itself on remaining devoutly Christian in its ethos.

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