For a few hours on Monday, it looked like we were bearing witness to a travesty in the Canadian Football League. On Monday morning, Art Briles, the man who turned a blind eye to one of the most outrageous sexual assault scandals in collegiate sports history, was hired as an assistant coach north of the border. But amid a furious outcry on both sides of the border, he’s back on the unemployment line.
In May 2016, Baylor University fired Briles just three months before the start of what would have been his ninth season at the school after an independent review found that several football staffers–including some of his assistants–deliberately kept accusations of sexual assault against football players in-house. Additionally, they helped players who were kicked off the team for disciplinary reasons transfer to other schools, and didn’t conduct proper due diligence of prospective transfers to Baylor.
In November, it emerged that Baylor officials concluded they had no choice but to give Briles the boot after learning that he had known about an alleged sexual assault that occurred in 2013 and failed to report it. Just last week, ESPN’s Paula Lavigne and Mark Schlabach released a book, “Violated,” which portrayed the lengths to which Briles went to keep disciplinary problems within the program–even when school rules and basic decency demanded otherwise.
Even before then, it was amply established that Briles was not exactly the greatest role model. He promised to apologize to a former Baylor student who had been raped by one of his players–but never showed up to make the apology.
But apparently none of that mattered to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, the only winless team in the CFL. On Monday, they announced that Briles had been hired as assistant head coach for offense under new head coach June Jones.
The criticism came in fast and hard. Former NHL player Theo Fleury, who became an advocate for sexual assault victims after revealing he’d been assaulted by his junior hockey coach, probably spoke for a lot of people on both sides of the border.
If you knew and didn't say anything then you are just as much part of rape as the people who committed rape. Shame on #CFL
— Theo Fleury (@TheoFleury14) August 28, 2017
Other fans were outraged that the TiCats even considered taking Briles on after safety Justin Cox was effectively blackballed by the CFL after being acquitted for domestic violence.
The @CFL won't let Justin Cox play, yet they have no problem allowing one of their teams to hire Art Briles? Hypocrites.
— Mark Sheldon (@markdsheldon) August 28, 2017
Cox was acquitted in May, but league officials stated that he is still not welcome. His former team, the Saskatchewan Roughriders, has no plans to take him back even if the league lifts its ban. Apparently they believe that whatever Cox did was wrong, even if it wasn’t illegal.
Other reactions were no less furious.
I wonder if @cfl knows that 1 in 3 women experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetimes. Most know their assailant #ArtBriles
— Laurie (@mcsmartypants) August 28, 2017
Remember – #CFL introduced league-wide initiative, including mandatory training of players & employees to prevent violence against women 1/
— Gloria Wittal (@gwittal) August 28, 2017
Yet now you are allowing #ArtBriles into our league that celebrated this initiative. It appears that he doesn't believe in this initiative 2
— Gloria Wittal (@gwittal) August 28, 2017
Praying 4 every survivor out there who feels betrayed & let down by a society who values wins over human life. You matter more than football
— Brenda Tracy (@brendatracy24) August 28, 2017
The outcry over the Ticats hiring of Art Briles is justified.. he put his precious program ahead of protection for women.. #cfl #ticats
— Warren Woods (@WoodsyCJME) August 28, 2017
https://twitter.com/MikeBeauvais/status/902201339823972352
In a case of particularly bad timing, Briles’ hiring was announced on the first day of the TiCats’ yearly “Huddles and Heels” women’s football clinic, sponsored by local jeweler Barry’s Jewelers. By that afternoon, Barry’s had issued a statement condemning the hiring and announced plans to donate a portion of its sales to a local sexual assault support center.
TiCats CEO Scott Mitchell initially defended the hire, saying that Briles was “a good man caught in a bad situation,” and deserved another shot. However, a lot of people at CFL headquarters must have felt otherwise. By late Monday afternoon, league officials issued a brief, but ominous, press release stating that the league was “continuing discussions” with the TiCats about Briles’ hiring. For all of Roger Goodell’s talk about upholding the integrity of the NFL, we don’t usually hear this sort of statement on this side of the border.
By Monday night, the CFL and the TiCats issued a joint statement announcing that Briles would not join the coaching staff after all following a “lengthy discussion.” According to the Toronto Star, league officials told the TiCats that while they could hire Briles, it didn’t mean that they should. That, combined with the growing cross-border backlash, brought team officials to their senses.
It’s hard not to wonder why it took this long. After all, shouldn’t it have occurred to someone in Hamilton that a coach that had become radioactive in both the college and pro ranks, despite his solid on-field record, probably wasn’t a good choice?
Full disclosure, folks. What turned out to be Briles’ last game was a 49-38 victory in the 2015 Russell Athletic Bowl against my North Carolina Tar Heels. Now it turns out Baylor may have won with the help of players who had no business being on campus, let alone being on the field. Any coach who puts winning above basic standards of decency doesn’t belong on a sideline, college or pro. Period. It says a lot that it took this long for the TiCats to figure that out.
(featured image courtesy Rockin’ Rita, available under a Creative Commons BY-SA license)
