Move to Reinstate Briles at Baylor is WAACY

By Ken Reed

As we’ve pointed out many times on this site, and in my book, How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan, virtually all problems in sports can be traced to either win-at-all-costs (WAAC) or profit-at-all-costs (PAAC) mentalities and policies.

Baylor University is providing a case study in WAACYness and warped priorities.

Only days after head football coach Art Briles, athletic director Ian McCaw, and president Ken Starr were pushed out of their jobs for their roles in the sexual assault and domestic violence scandals in the football program, athletic department and university as a whole, a campaign — led by some prominent Baylor boosters — to reinstate Briles as Baylor head coach for the 2017 season has gained enough momentum that the possibility will be formally addressed by the school’s board of regents. Under Briles’ watch, multiple football players have faced sexual assault charges at the Baptist school in Waco, Texas.

Bob Simpson, co-owner of MLB’s Texas Rangers and a prominent Baylor donor, said he would welcome Briles’ return.

“We’d like to see that,” said Simpson. Simpson’s name is on the building that houses the school’s athletic offices.

Two former Baylor regents, Dary Stone and Gale Galloway, have also endorsed Briles’ return to the Baylor sidelines.

“One of the finest men I’ve known is Art Briles,” said Galloway. “He certainly deserves to be reinstated. This [his firing] is heartbreaking and an overreaction.”

One of the finest men? Overreaction?!

In an investigative report about the sexual assault scandal at Baylor by the law firm Pepper Hamilton, the football program specifically, and the athletic department as a whole, was highly criticized.

In the report’s “finding of facts,” athletic department coaches and administrators “failed to take appropriate action to respond to reports of sexual assault and dating violence reportedly committed by football players. The choices made by football staff and athletics leadership, in some instances, posed a risk to campus safety and the integrity of the university.”

Two Baylor football players have been convicted of sexual assault since 2014. Another was arrested on sexual assault charges in April. Other players have been named in Waco police reports alleging sexual and physical violence. According to police reports, at least some coaches and Baylor officials knew of the allegations. The players did not miss time for disciplinary reasons.

Briles also had a history at Baylor of taking players that had been kicked off the rosters of other schools for disciplinary reasons.

But for Simpson, Stone and Galloway, success on the football scoreboard apparently trumps the safety of students on campus. Over the last five seasons, Briles has posted 50 wins and two Big 12 titles. For some supporters of Briles, those numbers are enough to brush aside a football culture that looks the other way from cases of players sexually abusing fellow students at Baylor.

“No one respects womanhood more than Art,” said Galloway.

Yeah, right.

— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans