re: DeBoer was right. Athletes can play amid sexual misconduct inquiries

Tell that to the ghost of Mike Leach. He kicked the Sorry arse James boy off the team and got fired.

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The coach always had final say on who plays and who doesn’t. If the coach decides someone can’t play or practice, then that’s it.

It’s weak men who rely on policy to avoid the weight of leadership.

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The problem here is that if you suspend a guy for what people find out to be sexual assault allegations, it potentially opens your University up to litigation if the allegations are false. It would absolutely do damage to the individual’s reputation. He would almost certainly need to transfer, then who takes a risk on him once he makes that decision?

In this instance, the University administration and Title IX department made the decision to both suspend and reinstate (a very short time later), based on the information they had. Police didn’t bring charges until 5 months after the fact.

So, while I’m sure the view is real nice up on that moral high ground, the reality is it’s never that simple, due process exists for a reason, and so do University policies & procedures.

Suspending a player based on allegation alone is a mind numbingly stupid decision.

And to clarify, you’re of the belief that if the Title IX department clears the player to return, the coach should suspend him anyway?

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It’s weak men who rely on policy to avoid the weight of leadership.

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I’ll contend it’s weak men who make decisions based on their fear of public backlash instead of doing what’s right based on the information available. If it’s good enough for a whole arse Title IX department to give the nod, it sure as shite should be good enough for the head coach, who has access to a fraction of the information.

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The coach always has final say on who plays and who doesn’t. If the coach decides someone can’t play or practice, then that’s it.

It’s weak men who rely on policy to avoid the weight of leadership.

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We are not talking about a clear team rule the kid clearly violated that gets him benched. If the school can get the ever living crap sued out of it for arbitrarily removing the athlete from a team based off of allegations that are in the process of being investigated, do you think the coach can wink wink nod nod suspend him when the school could not? In that instance the coach just added himself to the long list of people getting sued in the case it turns out the athlete is innocent (or not convicted). If the only reason a reasonable juror can see as to why an athlete loses all their playing time is the ongoing allegation and it turns out to be false, that coach is getting nailed for implementing a de facto suspension that is not allowed by the school.

Schools have been getting the shite sued out of them based off of the kangaroo courts they ran when men were having their names destroyed based off of false allegations. This is resulting pendulum swing in the other direction. Schools are scared of doing anything until the police and/or courts are done because they do not want to get sued.

Sure DeBoer could have kept him on the team and benched him but that is a massively precarious legal position he would be putting himself in.

The Duke lacrosse scandal I referenced provided 100 million reasons why other schools and coaches are so cautious now about arbitrarily throwing players to the wolves before due process has run its course.

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The Duke lacrosse case was a widely reported 2006 criminal case in Durham, North Carolina, United States, in which three members of the Duke University men's lacrosse team were falsely accused of rape.

Investigation and resolution of the case sparked public discussion of racism, sexual violence, media bias, and due process on campuses. The former lead prosecutor, Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, ultimately resigned in disgrace, and was disbarred and briefly imprisoned for violating ethics standards.

Duke's athletic director at the time, Joe Alleva, who forced lacrosse coach Mike Pressler's resignation, faced criticism for his handling of this case. In 2008, Alleva announced he was leaving Duke for the athletic director position at Louisiana State University.[152] The lacrosse team, reinstated for the 2007 season, reached the NCAA Finals as the #1 seed. The Blue Devils lost to the Johns Hopkins University Blue Jays in the championship,

In the end, there was no trial—a fact that most people forget. The three players received $20 million each in a settlement with Duke. The university spent more than $100 million between legal fees, settlement costs, and other expenses to move on from the ignominy and preserve its “brand.”

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A whole lot of people had their worlds turned upside down because of the accusations of one woman who now is actually in prison for murder. Had one of the charged player’s family not been wealthy enough to fight Duke University and the state of North Carolina, all three likely plea bargained to a lesser offense that still would have branded them as sex offenders for the rest of their lives.

But some of you in this thread seem to be cool with that.