So the saga gets sordid.
A player who wasn't good enough to play is cut. She unleashes hell. A letter to the governor? Really?
Things to say directly:
1) if Corey was sleeping with players or actually harassing them? He should have been gone. What today passes for "harassment" is, however, asinine. One player claiming she was slapped on the butt after a good play? I'm sorry. There's nothing sexual about that.
2) If Clint was made aware of his son sleeping with a player and tried to cover for him? He needed to go. In his defense his son probably lied to him. He didn't want to believe. But still. Never a good idea to have kids work for you.
3) If Meredith Jenkins told the players to delete evidence? She's gonna feel the axe. I don't believe it. I've dealt with Meredith for more than 20 years. I just don't buy their version.
4) The crucifixion is gauche. I can guarantee you that every one of those girls joked and played along. In all likelihood Corey had a general idea he was crossing lines but their responses gave him every reason to believe it was cool. Only AFTER the fact do they come out with knives and the "oh he was a creep anyway" stuff. It's a variation of the "we didn't want him anyway" reaction.
5) How completely "us" if the thing that gets rid of Jay Jacobs is a freaking softball sex scandal.
I read the story yesterday and came away with basically the same opinion as you.
With the benefit of hindsight, smacking a female player's ass was probably a bad idea but I can also see how in the context of a coach-player scenario him not even thinking about it. If it were a dude baseball player it would not be thought twice about and would never have come up as a thing.
As for what apparently actually did him in, it sounds like he was consensually fucking one of the few straight players on the team and the rest of the girls were hatin'. This is a wildly unpopular take, but it's what the facts lead to. I can't for the life of me understand how they are so outraged at their fellow teammate for gettin' some dick.
It was an act that set the stage for all that was to follow: an emotionally charged postgame confrontation between Fagan and Florida coach Tim Walton, who unwittingly stepped into the Auburn storm; the three-hour March 30 "quarantine" described in Greenberg's letter; the resignation of Corey Myers; and, perhaps most remarkably, the refusal of several members of the team, including Fagan and 2016 All-American Kasey Cooper, to board the bus to Athens in the company of the player who allegedly exchanged text messages with Corey Myers.
"We said that if she gets on, we're staying off," Fagan said. "It was a team decision."
And yeah, I don't know if it's criminal to confiscate someone's cell phone and take pictures of their texts, but it sure as shit is a blatant invasion of privacy and immoral.
Which is about the level of offense I'm willing to assign to Corey Meyers at this point. Apparently, he's married with three kids. So fucking the twenty-something-year-old player you coach is immoral, sure. It's Bobby Petrino on a motorcycle level immoral. Is it illegal? Is it even firable? I don't see how it is. I genuinely don't know the answer to this, but does Title IX bar male teachers and coaches from having consensual relationships with female students/players? I genuinely don't know, but if so I disagree that it should be. Consenting adults can do whatever they damn well please. That said, was it smart on Corey's part? Of course fucking not. Whether it's jealousy over the relationship or the impression that you're showing favortism as a result of said relationship, it's certainly not good for team chemistry, as was clearly demonstrated with this bus debacle.
Anyway, everyone's quick to throw everyone at Auburn under the bus like we were facilitating rape or something, but I have a hard time equating this to a Baylor situation or a Penn State situation or anything close.
55 Replies
15204 Views