Ad Disclosure
Jeremy Foley doing his best to educate Florida coaches on how to avoid the mistakes of Baylor
Published:
There’s a good reason Jeremy Foley is well known around the world of college athletics as possibly the best active administrator, he does things the right way and gets out in front of issues before they become problems. The latest example of this comes in the wake of the terrible scandal at Baylor after administrators, coaches and possibly even law enforcement went out of their way to hide allegations of sexual assault and domestic violence from Baylor athletes.
Following the news in Waco, Foley sent out a detailed email this week to all of his coaches outlining the major mistakes Baylor made and even included a link to the independent Pepper Hamilton report the school ordered in the wake of the sexual assault scandal.
According to a AP report, Foley outlined three areas of emphasis already in place at Florida but that he felt needed to be reiterated in the wake of Baylor’s failure to meet these standards:
- Not reporting allegations of sexual assault or harassment. If a student reports to them or if they hear of any allegations at any point they are to be reported immediately. This information cannot be kept confidential.
- Coaches are not to conduct investigations themselves, university specialists are already in place to handle such situations.
- Coaches cannot interfere with the university discipline process.
These steps may seem like common sense, however as it appears from the Pepper Hamilton report, not all college coaching staffs follow these guidelines despite the rules being in place.
Kudos to Foley for doing his best to reiterate what needs to take place in order to keep students safe on Florida’s campus. We can only hope all other school administrators took the time to do the same and that coaches fully understand and abide by the guidelines in the future.
A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Michael Wayne Bratton oversees the news coverage for Saturday Down South. Michael previously worked for FOX Sports and NFL.com
