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Apparently Art Briles and other Baylor administrators have finally overplayed their hand. Briles and Colin Shillinglaw, a former assistant athletcs director, recently filed defamation suits against three regents - Cary Gray, Ron Murff and David Harper.
Briles suddenly dropped his lawsuit this week, without any settlement. But the three regents, (with help from their lawyer, Rusty Hardin), decided enough was enough.
So in response to Shillinglaw’s suit, they released documents Thursday that paint a picture of a program out of control. The documents depict Briles, former athletic director Ian McCaw and several others on the football coaching staff as actively covering up damaging information in order to protect Baylor players who committed criminal acts.
The texts show examples of football coaches and athletic department personnel actively covering up such illegal behavior as players doing drugs, selling drugs, pulling a gun on another student, as well as assaulting another student.
On September 20, 2013, after a player was arrested for assault and threatening to kill a non-athlete, a football operations staff official tried to talk the victim out of pressing criminal charges. Meanwhile, Coach Briles texted Athletics Director Ian McCaw: “Just talked to [the player] – he said Waco PD was there – said they were going to keep it quiet – Wasn’t a set up deal... I'll get shill (Shillinglaw) to ck on Sibley (local attorney Jonathan Sibley).” Athletics Director Ian McCaw replied: “That would be great if they kept it quiet!" Texts released today show Briles and former AD Ian McCaw discussing an alleged gang rape as to how to keep it quiet and in-house.
Then Briles and Baylor AD Ian McCaw (current AD at Liberty University), exchange texts detailing their efforts to keep an alleged gang rape involving 5 Baylor football players quiet and out of the legal system.
According to the response, the first allegation of gang rape involving Baylor football players surfaced in April 2013, when a female student-athlete confided in her coach that five players raped her at an off-campus party in early 2012. According to the response, the woman told her coach that the incident "started with one football player and the other players were soon 'all over her.'" She identified each of the players who allegedly sexually assaulted her, and the coach wrote their names on a piece of paper.
The university's response says the woman's coach -- Outside the Lines previously confirmed the coach was former Baylor volleyball coach Jim Barnes -- addressed the woman's allegations with McCaw, who told him to talk to Briles. The response says Barnes showed Briles the names of the players and he replied, "Those are some bad dudes. Why was she around those guys?"
You can read the links if you want to get all the gory details.
Just remember how vigorously his assistants (three of whom are coaching elsewhere, including at Texas) defended him on social media and wore sweatbands at games with “CAB” on them.
I give them credit for one thing.
#truthdontlie