Is this that “culture” thing all those Tennessee coaches were gushing about at that presser yesterday?
University of Tennessee football coach Butch Jones told one of his players he “betrayed the team” after the wide receiver helped a woman who said she was raped by two other football players, according to a new legal filing in a sweeping lawsuit filed by six women against Tennessee.
Sophomore Drae Bowles “broke down and cried” after speaking with his coach, the lawsuit said.
Jones later called Bowles back to apologize for calling him “a traitor to the team,” according to the suit.
It’s sure looking like Booch is gonna have a helluva time at SEC Media Days. Assuming he’s not dodging service in Hoover like Fulmer did, that is.
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UPDATE: Booch strenuously objects.
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UPDATE #2: If you’re looking for a legal analysis of what Bowles’ affidavit means, here you go.
There are two important takeaways there. One – and it’s a big one – don’t lose sight of this being a classic “he said, he said” situation. Barring some sort of direct evidence popping up about the conversation between Jones and Bowles, Booch will have every opportunity to put his own spin on what was or wasn’t said.
Two – and it’s just as big – Tennessee is in a tough spot with regard to Jones.
Second, Bowles’s allegation directly implicates Jones. This places the university in a potentially awkward position of defending the state’s highest-paid public employee—the university reportedly owes Jones approximately $20.5 million through 2020—from allegations of callous and obstructing conduct. Moreover, the allegation could cause university attorneys to closely study Jones’s contract in the event the university decides to fire him. The contract may contain provisions that enable a firing with cause (a memorandum of understanding for his contract indicates a for-cause provision exists).
If there’s any possibility this thing has legs, how does UT preserve its room to maneuver in the event it has to build a case to throw Jones to the wolves, while at the same time proclaiming its support for the head coach?
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UPDATE #3: Dismissing allegations contained in a lawsuit, as I’ve seen some of you in the comments do, misses the point somewhat. As noted in the previous update, they may indeed turn out to be impossible to prove. But Jones and the university will still have to spend time and energy denying them for months, if not longer. Booch can whistle in the dark about culture and this being no distraction, but that’s bullshit. It’ll be an issue in every press conference he walks into for the foreseeable future. And the possibility of organized protests in front of every Tennessee football game can’t be something the administration would appreciate.
Beyond that, speaking of the culture, when you put everything surrounding the athletic department on the Title IX front in an organized timeline, it looks pretty grim. With everyone in the chain of command named in one form or fashion, you can see why, at least in the short run, the school intends to fight. But who do you think stands to lose the most if it turns out that there’s real fire behind all that smoke? For starters, I’ll put it this way: I wouldn’t want to be the highest-paid, most visible employee of a university’s department that’s forced to remake itself in order to settle a high-profile lawsuit.