Here we go again for Baylor University. It was only a matter of time before it started to unravel again. About 13 years ago there was the murder and disappearance of Baylor basketball player Patrick Dennehy in which teammate Carlton Dotson plead guilty to in June of 2005. The Waco campus was under the microscope for a long time after the resignation of David Bliss and was heavily sanctioned by the NCAA. It was an ugly situation for everyone involved.
In the recent years the University was making the news for all the right reasons. Baylor hired Art Briles in 2008 and the Bears were once again a relevant football program in a state where having a successful football program was more important than anything. Robert Griffin III was defeating the bigger name programs in the state and making the Baylor Bears contenders for the National Title. Briles' high powered offense was leading the nation in virtually every category and contending for the Big 12 title every season.
Then August 2015 rolled around and problems started to surface again in Waco. Baylor football defensive end Sam Ukwuachu was found guilty of sexual assault after coaches had allowed him to participate in team activities despite being indicted for the charges a year before. Briles claimed he had no knowledge of Ukwuachu's history at Boise State with sexual assault. Following the conviction and inconsistencies in stories, Baylor's Board of Regents hires a law firm out of Philadelphia, Pepper Hamilton, to “conduct a thorough and independent external investigation into the university’s handling of cases of alleged sexual violence.”
It was clear that school officials were not handling these cases of alleged sexual violence or providing support to those who reported assaults. In January of 2016 ESPN's Outside the Lines reported these cases and it was the beginning of the end for Baylor and their successful and beloved football coach. On April 13th, 2016 former Baylor All American Shawn Oakman was arrested on charges of sexual assault but was never disciplined by the university. The following day ESPN's OTL reported that Baylor took 2 years to finally investigate or at the very least acknowledge a sexual assault report made against two football players.
On May 13, 2016 the Board of Regents received the report from the law firm in Philadelphia and not even two weeks later, Art Briles was fired and Ken Starr was removed as University President and AD Ian McCaw was sanctioned and put on probation. So what does this all mean? It took Baylor this long to figure out that something was wrong with the conduct of their student athletes. It's a very unfortunate situation for many parties involved, but of course it could have all been avoided and prevented. But why do what's right and jeopardize losing recruits or talented troubled players?
In the world of college sports today, there's so much pressure on coaches, players, programs to live up to absurd expectations and it's becoming more and more difficult for universities to control what's occurring on their campuses. There's so much money being thrown around and fed back in to big name programs that, as horrible as this sounds, these cases and scandals are going to continue to happen. There will be certain players that are "above the law" and excused of their actions, not penalized or even slapped on the hand. No NCAA rules are going to matter, there are going to be exceptions and players and coaches will continue to do what's in their best interest, not the university's, the student body or the community.