There’s always a country or state or institution pretty nearby that looms as the embodiment of your fear that your proud local culture is just this far away from sinking into the depravity of that other place.
[M]any in Paris [anxiously note the] “Italianization” of French life — the descent into what might become an unseemly round of [Silvio] Berlusconian squalor…
As in – France got this close to electing President Dominique Strauss-Kahn. (Dom and Don would have been great friends.)
Leave aside the details of the [rape and pimping] allegations against Dominique Strauss Kahn, the head of the IMF (his lawyer indicates he will plead not guilty). Just note that the New York Times states that he was staying in a $3,000 a night suite and was taking a first class flight to Paris. This is the IMF, the body that imposes austerity on indebted countries and is funded by global taxpayers. And this was the likely leading socialist candidate for the French presidency.
Money and sex sleaze is all over, of course (hence widespread Italianization fears), but let’s consider this warning to the University of Kansas (a public university) in the specific context of global elites and public money/general sleaze.
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First: The problem besetting Francois Fillon today is exactly DSK’s problem, minus the raping: Greed + Hypocrisy. Fillon is just as stern about austerity (for the common French; not for him and his family) as was DSK’s IMF. Now his decade-long extraction of roughly a million euros from the public purse – like DSK’s use of global taxpayer money for his hotel room and flight – has the French joking about le million de Fillon and referring to François Million.
Maybe the world should establish special austerity guidelines for elites: Spain’s Princess Cristina may soon be sent to prison for a few years – she’s accused of being her husband’s accomplice in taking six million public euros (he faces twenty years confinement)… Which really when you think about it makes Fillon’s takings seem very small indeed (one v. six million), and maybe they weren’t even illegal! DSK’s takings were even less (he wasn’t head of IMF long enough to raid it), and almost certainly they followed the letter of the law.
One reason to let most of the elites get away with it is that elite corruption that gets discovered begets much more corruption. Cristina’s father – the King of Spain when her story broke – apparently offered a two million euro bribe to some people to make her trial go away.
Having to deal with corruption is bad enough. Having to deal with corruption involving very rich and powerful people is a serious nuisance.
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Which brings me to the kings of America: our football coaches. It is they who assemble and – er – stabilize a roster of university or professional players, they who – at universities – command the highest public employee salary in twenty-seven of our states. (In other states, it’s basketball coaches.) They’re making scads more than the terrified president of their university, and, like Art Briles, they really get free rein. Everyone moves out of their way or enables them – campus police, town police, alumni, trustees, administrators, professors, presidents, chancellors, legislators… hell, governors — not a peep out of them. As for female students who may get beaten or raped by some of the players the coach has expensively recruited … Baylor’s football coach, Briles, allegedly “questioned why a woman was with ‘bad dudes’ from his football team after [he was told about] a gang rape accusation.” What kind of a dummy comes to a school that represents itself in this way and doesn’t know to expect gang rapes from bad dudes? Don’t women applicants read our admissions information? Baylor University seeks out bad dudes and deifies them.
Okay, so that’s the way of life. Like most corruption, it tends to feature elements of sex, money, and cover-up. I’ve always found it pretty remarkable that it thrives at universities, of all places – that bad dudes and even worse coaches dominate life on many campuses. But as with the Spanish monarchy, it takes far more than one disgusting eruption to bury the crown. You dump your current regent (he gets another job right away, maybe again at a noisily self-righteous Christian campus), take down his statue, and install a new royal house.
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So okay this article. This article is about what its author daintily refers to as “the situation in Lawrence.” He’s not very specific about it, but all of the links in this sentence begin to scratch the surface. He’s worried about Baylor-corruption contagion; he uses the fate of Baylor as a cautionary tale for Kansas.
Many universities have an alarming tendency of allowing sports-related problems to fester because they won’t deal with them head-on. Coaches become too powerful and too autonomous to challenge. Image protection overwhelms honesty and transparency. A toxic tolerance level for bad behavior and bad students builds up.
At Baylor, a basketball player murdered his teammate in 2003, and the coach at the time (Dave Bliss) maliciously smeared the dead man in order to cover up NCAA violations. Within the football program, the [last coach,] (Art Briles, may he never coach again) expended quite a bit of energy keeping accusations about his players from going public or reaching the school’s judicial affairs office, and in obtaining special treatment from the administration. Briles had allies above him in athletic director Ian McCaw and school president Kenneth Starr.
The writer urges Kansas – which, remarkably even by university athletics standards, boasts “six incidents involving Kansas basketball players, in some form or fashion, that have come to light within the past two weeks,” not to deepen its institutional corruption by acting like Baylor (he could have chosen Florida State etc. etc., but Baylor’s the most recent) and adding cover-up to corruption.
If the Kansas trustees are smart and conscientious and concerned about the university as a whole and not just as a basketball power, they’re pushing hard for all the facts – and, if warranted, for immediate and significant action. Public action.
Don’t spend more energy trying to hide problems than fix problems. Don’t, at any cost, follow the Baylor blueprint.
But of course it isn’t just the trustees, and anyway we have no reason to think that the same trustees who let KU turn into dreck will reverse course. (And look who’s running the place.)
And speaking of reversals – given the history, over the last decade or so, of the University of Kansas, I’m afraid the corruption-contagion arguably goes the other way: Kansas has stunk to high heaven for a long time.
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Update, Fillon:
[I]nvestigators [are] now also probing whether Mr Fillon awarded the highest French state honour – the Grand Croix de la Légion d’Honneur – to the wealthy owner of a literary review in return for giving his wife a well-paid sinecure.
A Baylor booster speaks.
Doctrinal missions?
Don’t make me puke.
Nocturnal emissions.
… will be dominating news from that university for awhile. As in – what’s my girl Briles doing with her lawyers today? Last week she was suing everybody at the university cuz they said hurtful things and made her feel bad; this week she’s withdrawing her suit because “a girl can only carry so much… she wants some peace in her life…”
But don’t worry! Two other ex-football people are still suing, and there’s tons more where they came from.
America’s highest-profile Baptist university is increasingly divided up between people who are suing and people who are in prison.
Practice in the morning – throwing, blocks, and tackles –
Practice in the noontide, til the drunken eve;
Waiting for the hostess and the time of raping,
Waiting for the lawyers, toting up the rapes.
Toting up the rapes, toting up the rapes,
One suit says it’s fifty – lads are in a scrape!
Toting up the rapes, toting up the rapes,
Trustees come together seeking an escape.
Raping in the sunshine, raping in the shadows,
Fearing neither cop nor courtroom’s chilling breeze;
By and by complainants and the press condemn us
Now our rapes are over – there is no reprieve.
Going forth with weeping, losing field advantage,
Though the loss sustained our spirit often grieves;
When our weeping’s over, we’ll bid new recruits welcome.
We’ll regain position, toting up the rapes.
The lawsuit, filed by a woman identified as Elizabeth Doe, alleges there were 52 “acts of rape” committed by Baylor football player from 2011 to 2014. Doe says she was gang-raped by [two football players] on April 18, 2013. According to Doe, the school did not move to investigate or discipline the players, instead offering to “pay for her education in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement.”
Three players, and you get a stipend too.
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Ouch. National reaction not very nice.
What if Baylor gets the death penalty? What’s it got left? A stupendously hypocritical Christianity, and the ruins of a university.
… every day is a challenge. Ken Starr, Art Briles, gang rape and cover-up galore… All in the context of a very self-righteous, very Christian campus…
It would be a challenge for anyone [“Uh we’re pleased to announce we have the final numbers… Let’s see… ’17 women [have] reported 19 sexual or physical assaults involving football players since 2011, including four gang rapes…'”] , but Heath Nielsen is really struggling with it. Maybe it’s something in the Waco water supply, but (paraphrasing Tammy Wynette) sometimes, in Waco, it’s hard to be a man.
A sportswriter was photographing a football player after a game, see.
[The writer] had received permission from a football player to take [the] photograph, and after the picture was taken “Nielsen walked up to [the writer] on the right, grabbed [him] by the throat with his right hand, squeezed and pushed him away from the football player,’ an arrest warrant affidavit … says.
When [the writer] and the player asked Nielsen what the problem was, he replied, “He’s abusing his privileges,” the affidavit said.
To review: This is the guy in charge of managing the team’s public image.
And equally special is this Deadspin update on that… peculiar institution.
Headline:
Baylor Confirms [Head Fooball Coach] Art Briles Knew About Alleged Gang Rape And Chose Not To Report It
Puke.
Former Baylor head football coach Art Briles and former athletic director Ian McCaw knew about an alleged group sexual assault and chose not to report it, according to a statement issued yesterday by the university.
A woman at the university, a student, told whoever would listen that five football players attacked her. At the highest levels, Baylor University did nothing.
This confirmation also indicates that the assistant coaches who spoke out last week in defense of Briles weren’t being truthful about his role in the scandal.
Moral squalor in defense of football is no vice.
Retch.
The majority of the football staff (including offensive coordinator Kendal Briles, son of Art) pushed back on [the claim about Briles] with a statement laying out an alternate version of events where the allegations were reported to the judicial affairs department. Now, the university has released a statement confirming that Briles and McCaw were both aware of the alleged group sexual assault and neither chose to report it.
Family values, university football.
Heave.
Baylor says that McCaw initially denied knowledge of the allegations when first asked about them in 2015, after other reports of sexual assault involving the football team began to surface. He then backtracked to tell the university that he had in fact been made aware of the allegations in 2013. The university’s statement does not say whether McCaw had any contact with the female athlete, but he said he chose not to report because he did not believe she wanted a report to be filed. This is not how university employee reporting responsibilities work.
AD leadership, Baylor-style. First lie through your teeth. Then when too much raping makes it impossible to continue to lie, tell the truth. Then lie again and say that your understanding, as AD, about reporting responsibilities, was that if someone doesn’t want you to report (itself almost certainly a lie) you don’t report.
Hurl.
Gag.
Spew.
[Sing along.]
Free from the law — oh, happy condition!
Rapists have fled, and there is remission;
Cursed by the law but saved from the fall,
Starr hath redeemed us once for all.
Once for all — oh, rapist, receive it;
Once for all — oh doubters, believe it;
Cling to the boss, the burden will fall,
Starr hath redeemed us once for all.
There is the boss your burden upbearing,
Pious white suits your savior is wearing;
Never again your sin need appall,
You have been pardoned once for all.
Now we are free — there’s no condemnation;
Baylor provides a perfect salvation:
“Come unto Me,” oh, hear its sweet call,
Come, and it saves us once for all.
If you kick him off the team altogether, you gum up the works of the amazing publicity machine that is Baylor University athletics.
As [Baylor ponders] what to do [about a football player filmed savagely beating his dog], let’s not forget Queso the cat, murdered and mutilated by Baylor baseball players, and Baylor basketball player Patrick Dennehy, shot twice in the head by his teammate Carlton Dotson. And then there are the victims of sexual assault handled so well in house.
Another local reader admires Baylor’s contributions to the Baptist faith.
For a Christian school, Baylor needs to clean up its act! A fancy new stadium doesn’t mean anything when the alumni are willing to ignore athletes who rape women and beat dogs!
Rumors abound that Baylor is finally going to go the honesty route. They are apparently working on an official statement that will go something like this:
Do you want to win? Then stand by our rapists, animal abusers, and murderers.
Do you want to lose? Then tie the hands of our recruiting coach.
It’s your call, Waco.
At this late date in the history of scandalous Baylor University, we shouldn’t be surprised that this very assertively Christian University lacks the basic moral clarity a local newspaper columnist displays. “[W]hat Zamora did was illegal. But to me it’s not about the legality and more about what Zamora’s actions say about him as a person. A good, kindhearted, person doesn’t abuse innocent animals.”
[Baylor] fans just endured a disgusting sexual assault scandal and many are having a hard time supporting the team after that. But we were told all the guilty parties were removed from the team, so we’re not rooting for sexual predators. Baylor shouldn’t turn around and ask those who stood by them to root for an animal abuser.
Actually, Baylor just stonewalled – rather than endured – its way through a sexual assault scandal. It was dragged kicking and screaming to doing the right thing.
Baylor University is that most curious thing: a Christian institution seemingly designed to encourage cruelty and viciousness.
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What I’m talking about at Baylor goes beyond the moral dissonance demanded of all serious football fans – you must adore a sport so freakishly violent that its beau idéal is Richie Incognito, even as you tell yourself you’re adoring clean-cut all-American fun.
But that’s nothing. That’s step one. Now place yourself at Baylor. Or at Notre Dame. Pile university and Christianity on top of all that dissonance. Reconcile vast mass worship of a hyper-concussive sport, quite a few of whose standout players feature, on the field and in their private lives, exactly the sort of lunatic aggression you’d expect, with some stubborn vestigial notion in your mind, some vague remembrance, that the bloody ritual you’re adoring takes place on hallowed intellectual and spiritual ground.
It should be difficult to enjoy yourself unadulteratedly under these conditions, as the bullies, brawlers, domestic abusers, rapists, and animal floggers (fuck academic cheaters; forget cheaters; c’est entendu) bloody each other down there…
But hey. Turns out not only isn’t it difficult; it’s easy. It’s a pleasure.
Because – to state the bleeding obvious – violence is the primary object of worship in the world of Baylor University. You’re sitting in Waco – home of last year’s enormous bikers-with-guns melee/massacre. You’re sitting in the heart of Trump territory. Your choice for national leader is the man who has turned a presidential election into The Rime of the Ancient Tackler.
Strangely, you don’t even like nobly violent people; you cheer on chickenshits like Trump – a man who crapped all over a war hero because he was captured and “I like people who weren’t captured.” You cheer on players who beat up women, children, and animals.
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Some like it hot.
Hot and bloody.
It’s the Baylor way.
Pledges to Coach and Fans that He’ll Get Better at It.
Ah Baylor Baylor Baylor Baylor.
Ah Waco Waco Waco Waco.
That university. That town. A very American crossroads.
I’d turn some of this into a song, but at the moment I’m exhausted from mowing my lawn in hellish heat.
Funny, you’re a team that likes raping.
That’s a disturbing sign.
Funny, but you also like stalking.
Waco, isn’t it? Baylor, isn’t it?
A limerick for Baylor University.
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‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore
A student got raped down at Baylor?
The school’s got a great way to nail her —
You’re a harlot who drinks!
Your immortal soul stinks!
Now who’ll be the next to impale her?
Well, let’s just go down that list, shall we? Horrible hideous shit can happen anywhere, especially in a country where everyone has at least two guns. We’re getting the list now because of the latest entry on it – the nation’s premier Baptist university, and that university’s local police department, spent years ignoring rampantly raping football players. That’s Waco’s latest claim to fame.
Okay, so four things on the list are about Baylor, basketball, and football: The murder, the cover-up, the NCAA sanctions, and now the rapes. If you ask ol’ UD, who’s been covering big-time sports mayhem at America’s universities since you were knee-high to a grasshopper, there’s nothing reigniting or even igniting about that list — homicidal raping covering up and heavily sanctioned university sports programs are not uncommon in the United States.
Admittedly most of the murders take place shortly after the player has dropped out of the school.
Since 2007, [Aaron Hernandez has] been charged with, or linked to, the shootings of six people in four incidents. Three of the victims were gruesomely murdered. One survivor, a former friend named Alexander Bradley, has had multiple operations and lost his right eye. The other two survivors were shot in their car outside a Gainesville, Florida, bar after an altercation involving Hernandez and two of his teammates his freshman year at the University of Florida. While in Gainesville, he sucker-punched a guy and shattered the fellow’s eardrum, and reportedly failed multiple drug tests, though he was suspended only once for those offenses.
But who’s counting? It’s your beloved suspension-averse alma mater we’re describing here, and right this minute you’re loading up the Bud Light in anticipation of tailgate season for you and the young’uns.
So is Waco problematically special? Only stuff special on the list is the two cults – the Davidians and the Pagans.
I’m sure Texas gets more than its share of violent cults, just as Utah and Oregon do, because these states get all goose-bumpy over guns plus they hate laws and shit cuz that’s the state and fuck the state.
No, by prevailing big-time university athletics standards and prevailing state standards, there’s nothing special about Waco.
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UPDATE: UD thanks Derek for pointing out
that this is about basketball as much as football.
