Braswell bobbled an option pitch and was chasing a fumble with his head down, and Abram launched himself straight into Braswell’s head. … [T]his is a textbook example of targeting…

It would’ve been an ejectable hit in a regular game, but in this game, it was simply a day-ender. Whether Abram was defenseless on the play, the contact to his head was so strong that any video crew in college football would’ve called targeting.

It was his teammate, too!

UCLA’s race problem.

… as Horatio has the gall to tell Hamlet when Hamlet alludes to the massive, two-decade academic scandal at the University of North Carolina.

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Hamlet’s sports-loving buddy dismisses all that’s been happening at UNC as a bunch of rumors. It’s as unreal as all that stuff they’re whispering about Penn State…

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Or, as Nietzsche famously said, “We have sports in order not to perish of the truth.”

The New York Times alludes to UD’s buddy, University of North Carolina professor Jay Smith.

And … who else? Who else among the UNC faculty bothered asking? The cardinal rule of being a professor at a football factory is to shut the fuck up.

Or no:

Some faculty members took the role of useful fools, vigorously defending the indefensible.

Useful, and richly rewarded.

Meanwhile UNC has consistently treated Jay like a pariah.

If you’re having trouble understanding this treatment, look to the trustee at Penn State complaining the other day about Jerry Sandusky’s “so-called victims.” Victims! You’re talking about young men lucky enough to be forcefully anally penetrated by a coach so famous a brand of campus ice-cream – The Sandusky Blitz – was named after him!

“Kids were holding them down in the locker rooms, there was a lookout at the door watching for coaches not to come. They hold them down and stick various items up their rectum… including Coke bottles, deodorant bottles, steel pipes, baseball bats, and broomsticks.”

… “Some kids, mostly [high school] athletes, are calling the victims ‘rats and snitches,’” [one resident] said, noting that most of the alleged victims have remained anonymous. “A lot of people are saying they feel bad for [the accused], that they didn’t do anything too extreme.”

On Tuesday, at least one student, he said, was wearing a shirt adorned with a photo of one suspect’s face.

… “What the boys did was disgusting and terrible, but none of this would be allowed to happen if these kids were better monitored. I guess the teachers are too busy stealing money, having sex with students, and looking at child porn to watch the kids,” one mother said.

“People forget, don’t they?” she said, echoing other parents who pointed to the La Vernia [Texas] School District’s record of scandal:

In January 2016, a math teacher quietly resigned amid an FBI investigation—child-pornography charges followed months later. (He pleaded guilty to one felony and is due to be sentenced in May, according to court records.) In 2015, a 26-year-old physics teacher was arrested for the alleged sexual assault of a student. Then there were the allegations of theft and embezzlement, the suicide of a vice principal at the junior high school, and that time a seventh-grade teacher (and niece of a local sheriff) led police on high-speed chase and was jailed for possession of methamphetamine and assault on a public servant. She served five years’ probation after a stint in rehab.

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“This is Small Town USA,” [a parent said.]

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UD thanks John.

UD admires this Baylor University student’s opinion piece – it’s well-written and straightforward about the depth and viscosity of shit in which his school currently swims.

He begins with a handy review of the Baylor “Rape Riot” Bears – their alleged deeds, their upcoming trials… He might have mentioned the “52 by 31” lawsuit as well, but he’s writing under space limitations.

[T]hese things won’t be going anywhere. Baylor will likely have four former football players on trial for sexual assault during the next calendar year, and it will undoubtedly be in the news… So, my fellow Baylor students and fans, prepare for more bad headlines. Know that when you check the news, Baylor and sexual assault will continue to be paired together. Be ready to hear tasteless rape jokes and calls to shut down our football team from rival fans and people in far corners of the country whose only impression of Baylor is the dark things they see in the news.

At the end of the piece, he grasps for some hope – see my headline – and of course UD can’t blame him. But that very hopeful list of his – interim prez, new coach and athletic director – goes in the opposite direction, methinks. I mean of course what else can a school like Baylor or North Carolina or whatever do when its purulence oozes out for the world to see… Naturally the thing you do is bring out the new linen… But those of us who follow universities closely know that instability in the positions that matter (forget prez; at schools like these all you need for prez is someone who gets out of the way of the AD and the coaches) is simply asking for more trouble. Basically your choice in these positions is The Corrupt Veteran or The Deer in the Headlights. Neither turns out well.

… and University Diaries can’t wait for what’s next.

UD‘s posts on Auburn, one of America’s most scummy sports factories, are here.

… standard.

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UD thanks Jeff.

But it’s okay. It was during a timeout.

… Baylor.

The trailer.

… probably testify for the prosecution against Graham Spanier, UD links you to her first post (in 2011) about the Paterno/Sandusky story.

Cost of the scandal to Penn State as of January of this year: “a quarter-billion dollars and growing.”

… you know more about the internal corruption of the place than I do.

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UD thanks dmf for the link.

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This blog’s Rutgers posts.

UD‘s old buddies Nathan Tublitz and Bill Harbaugh, professors at humongous jock school University of Oregon, managed to get a committee up and running there which allowed faculty a teeny bit of say about athletics. But Nathan’s and Bill’s rough rhetorical ways made the sports guys cry, so UO’s president dried their tears and killed the committee.

David Garland, Baylor University’s president, speaks:

I don’t know any school that has been as transparent as we have and taken the extraordinary actions we have… We’ve also published, on our website, findings of fact which in many ways are findings of fault… From a Christian perspective, we’ve confessed our sins, tried to repent and tried to make restitution.

Deadspin’s Tom Ley responds:

I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen someone pack so many lies into so few sentences. [The] findings of fact report that Garland deems to have been such an extraordinary act of transparency was nothing more than a 13-page summary of the law firm Pepper Hamilton’s investigation into the school’s failure to handle sexual assault allegations. That summary contained almost no specifics, and there is no written record of Pepper Hamilton’s full investigation because the school asked the firm to deliver its report to the regents orally.

As for Garland’s appeal to look at his school’s actions from a Christian perspective, all he’s doing here is pulling the same sleight of hand that so many institutions that operate under the umbrella of Christianity have pulled so many times before: He’s taking the concept of redemption to mean that properly-identified Christians, like himself, always have a free pass waiting for them. This is how a hollow document, a few scapegoat firings, and engaging in legal battles with victims become repentance. Being a good Christian means whatever the good Christian wants it to mean, and David Garland fancies himself a good Christian.

UD‘s reading it now.

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Well, ol’ UD will already take issue with the article’s sub headline, which has it that alumni and the “authorities” are really angry about Raping Football Players and the Men Who Love Them… But really, given the culture of Baylor (as amply represented by its departing sports ministry guy), are we supposed to buy that? Women are weak vessels and if they find themselves in an unpleasant spot with a man it’s because they forgot their burqa and their Bible. Boys will be boys.

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[One of many lawsuits against the school makes] the startling claim that at least 52 rapes by at least 31 players had occurred from 2011 through 2014 — a period when the once-hapless Baylor football program became a dominant force in the highly competitive Big 12 Conference.

Hey. Price of doing business.

Who can blame Baylor for believing that Baptist Propriety for Women would mean the weak vessels would confess their shame to the sports minister and then shut up about it?

Who can blame Baylor for knowing that you want the most aggressive person you can find for your football team?

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“Success in athletics means that all cocks rise,” Kenneth W. Starr, then the university’s president, told The Times in 2014.

Haha. I mean “boats.” He said success in athletics means that all boats rise.

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Some women on campus will of course gladly sacrifice their virtue for the sake of the team. It is their sacred honor to pleasure recruits. One lawsuit claims

“attractive female students” in the Bruins [a “hostess” program] were expected to ensure that recruits had a good time on campus by, for example, engaging “in sexual acts with the recruits to help secure the recruits’ commitment to Baylor.”

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So. Wait now for the academic scandal… Now that the door’s been opened on Baylor University, wait for details about what professors at Baylor were doing (are doing) to keep some players academically eligible.