This is flat out nasty.
When Clifton Robinson, the short but quick receiver from Naples, Florida, returned to the Auburn University football team in August 1999 after pleading guilty to contributing to the delinquency of a minor to avoid going to trial after being charged with the second-degree rape of a 15-year-old girl, first-year head coach Tommy Tuberville pledged to figure out the right punishment for him.
“Clifton is back on the team,”Β Tuberville said. “He and I will sit down today, and I’ll tell him that we do things right around here, so he can expect there will be some punishment. What it is, I don’t know yet.”
That punishment ended up being a mereΒ one-game suspensionΒ from the team’s Sept. 4 season opener against Appalachian State. Auburn won 22-15.
Tuberville, now running for the Republican Senate nomination in Alabama with the endorsement of President Trump, is locked in a competitive primary against former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The winner will face Democratic incumbent Doug Jones. The Tuberville campaign declined to comment on this story.
Bold strategy, Cotton.Β Let’s see if it pays off…
Tuberville’s past will indelibly be linked to the case of Roy Moore, who, as a Senate candidate for the special election in 2017, facedΒ serious, credible allegationsΒ of sexual impropriety and predatory behavior with teenage girls as young as 14 while he was in his early 30s.
If Tuberville wants to build trust with the people of Alabama and govern from a position of moral authority on what’s right and wrong, he needs to be transparent and explain his past actions.
Hoo, boy.Β It’s a good thing Tubs never pissed off anyone during his college coaching career.