Dear Baylor: How Can You Talk about Football at a Time Like This?

It’s getting increasingly difficult to leave my Baylor diploma hanging in my office. I’m proud of the work I did there, and I’m thankful for the fabulous professors who taught me lessons of music, confidence, and responsibility. But the recent revelations of the culture of violence, fostered by the football team and enabled by the administration, just keeps getting worse. The Dallas Morning News reported yesterday that a lawsuit has been filed, alleging 52 acts of rape committed by 31 football players between 2011-2014.

Frankly, I’m beyond ashamed and embarrassed. I’m angry. That these atrocities happened is beyond reprehensible. The fact they protected the abusers and allowed them to continue abusing is unconscionable. And I’m more angry at my alma mater with every new, darker revelation. It is only getting worse.

David Garland, Interim President, released a response yesterday.

I admire Dr. Garland a great deal, and I’m sure this response fulfills a legal necessity, but as a Baylor grad, I would appreciate a more thorough admission of guilt, apology to the victims, and a genuine sign of repentance. A culture of violence, especially sexual violence against women, belongs nowhere in our society, especially at a supposedly top-tier Christian university. And I think including updates on the future of our football program is premature, and in bad taste. In fact, an acknowledgement of the living hell these young women were subjected to deserves killing the whole football program off until Baylor can take full responsible for the full extent of its horrors.

Football is a violent game, and I hold the unpopular opinion that it should be banished from the face of the earth. It is a strange obsession in our culture, and a big business that lines pockets with the flesh and blood of young men. It mangles bodies, clouds the mind, and cuts lives short.

But there’s nothing I can do about it. The game goes on because our violent society demands it. Universities will continue to build their fame on the backs of young adult males, and will continue to tolerate poor scholarship and immature behavior. There’s apparently nothing we can really do about that, either. I would think it should go without saying that raping women cannot be one of those things.

After the allegations broke, I wrote these words in another post. I believe they are even more true today.

Why are we even continuing the football program at this point, Baylor? Why don’t we just shut the whole thing down. It’s an embarrassment. And let the McLane stadium complex stand empty, an awkward, embarrassing, painful reminder of how you compromised your identity as a faith-based institution. You played the part of the rich fool. You tore down your barn to build a bigger, $266 million barn. Let it sit there, and let all of us bow our heads in repentance every time we pass by.

Otherwise, don’t bother calling yourself top tier.

And while you’re at it, forget about the “Christian” part, too.

Photo: Flickr, creative commons 2.0