11/21/24
February 24, 2022
Grambling State set to hire Art Briles as offensive coordinator: Briles was fired as head coach of Baylor University in 2016 after an external investigation found that he and other University officials had suppressed information and failed to take action regarding a years-long string of alleged sexual assaults committed by football players. In the time since he was fired from Baylor, Briles has coached at the High School level and served stints in the CFL and an Italian Football league, but up to this point he had been considered untouchable by NCAA programs.
posted by Ufez Jones to football at 01:29 PM - 6 comments
Not a good look for Grambling State.
After growing up thinking of Baylor as an uptight place full of moralizers who hated dancing and shacking up -- I didn't open any of the letters it sent me when I was picking a school -- I'm amazed at how deep the rot went in its football and basketball programs.
posted by rcade at 03:30 PM on February 24, 2022
Briles never coached in the CFL. He was hired by a team as an assistant then fired a few hours later when details of his involvement at Baylor were uncovered.
I remembered he wasn't a HC and his time was brief, but I didn't recall it being that brief.
Not a good look for Grambling State.
It's not and I'm trying but failing to understand what they think they have to gain from it. Maybe they're betting it will somehow give a similar boost to their recruiting like Jackson State has gotten from Deion Sanders, but there are *so* many inherent differences.
More likely I see it playing out as Grambling takes the heat for letting Briles back in the gate and then he gets picked up by some middling Power Five school in a year or two. There was some talk that Texas Tech may have interest in him when they fired their coach in the middle of last season, but that didn't wind up going anywhere...yet. I hope I'm wrong.
After growing up thinking of Baylor as an uptight place full of moralizers who hated dancing and shacking up -- I didn't open any of the letters it sent me when I was picking a school -- I'm amazed at how deep the rot went in its football and basketball programs..
I didn't know much of anything about Baylor when I started there in '97 other than there was a family friend about ten years older than me who had gone there and it was (at the time) reasonably affordable for a pretty good private university. Most importantly to me, I got to get the hell out of Oklahoma.
But once you move off campus (I seriously considered transferring to UT after my freshman year in the dorms - I was spending half of my weekends in Austin anyhow, but it wound up being *way* too expensive for out-of-state tuition) its Southern Baptist roots didn't really affect me in any tangible way. There was plenty of partying to be found and even friends that got popped for DUIs or drug possession were given a slap on the wrist and a year of disciplinary probation similar to any other American Uni. Most of the Profs in my Economics program were of the neoclassical Chicago School variety which is small-c conservative but religion didn't play a role in any of those classes.
They do (or at least did, I haven't had any meaningful interaction with the University since I graduated in 2001) spend a lot of marketing time and money promoting how much "safer" it is compared to competing Texas universities to convince parents that it's okay to send their kids - and their tuition money - to Waco. But compared to my friend who wound up going to Oral Roberts on a soccer scholarship, we had it easy. You can certainly find your way into some deeply (and IMO disturbingly) religious groups without trying, but they're just as easy to ignore.
posted by Ufez Jones at 04:40 PM on February 24, 2022
A friend of mine here in NC went to Baylor in the early '90s. Said friend is gay and he lived in fear of getting expelled from the university if the administrator found that out. Said friend stayed in Baylor because he was struggling with his sexuality during that time and was closeted from his parents. So much fear from all angles during that time. He does not recommend that school to his high school biology students here.
posted by NoMich at 08:06 PM on February 24, 2022
Imagine if what happened in Waco stayed in Waco.
Matt Taibbi would be on assignment until he was 90 years old.
posted by beaverboard at 09:01 PM on February 24, 2022
Didn't last long enough to take the field, eh?
posted by billsaysthis at 01:39 PM on March 01, 2022
Briles never coached in the CFL. He was hired by a team as an assistant then fired a few hours later when details of his involvement at Baylor were uncovered.