2023 NCAA Football Thread

[gehringer_2]

I have no agenda in saying this, just the personal observation that it's is pretty weird how if you hang around long enough, everything that goes around, comes around again. In the 1950-1960s, tons of big orgs of all kinds had various kinds of non-fraternization rules of varying strictness. Every teacher and students were expected to remain perfect strangers. By round about 1980 people were supposedly chafing under the injustice being done to consulting adults who just happened to work for the same company or institution, and "lover the one your with" and all that, and down came all the barriers of all kinds. The Roman Polanskis of the world rejoiced. Fast forward another 30 yrs, and the very idea of 'consulting adult' is considered a facist construct and individual agency a myth in a world of implacable institutional power. (yes I'm being hyperbolic for fun here). The rebound of course isn't back to exactly the image of the prior status quo, but there is a certain template to it all that make it amusing to me.

[Deleterious]

 

Edited September 11, 2023 by Deleterious

[MichiganCardinal]

21 minutes ago, Deleterious said:

 

If this is correct, I will retract a lot of the shaming I've posted on MSU leadership. Outside of - as Justin said - not screaming this from the rooftops this evening. It would still be a black eye, but it's not the institutional failure I made it out to be.

[Hongbit]

Justin trusts MSU leadership to follow the rules much more than I do.  
 

Maybe they were quiet tonight because they knew more than they should’ve all along.   Title IX rules are the AD isn’t supposed to know the details of the complaint.  After all that has gone down the past few years, I’m not ready to just take MSU leadership at their word that they know the rules.  With this administration, it’s easier to believe they botched protocol and shared important details with the wrong people when they weren’t supposed to.

Edited September 11, 2023 by Hongbit

[Edman85]

27 minutes ago, MichiganCardinal said:

If this is correct, I will retract a lot of the shaming I've posted on MSU leadership. Outside of - as Justin said - not screaming this from the rooftops this evening. It would still be a black eye, but it's not the institutional failure I made it out to be.

I found the policy, it is correct.

[buddha]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

I have no agenda in saying this, just the personal observation that it's is pretty weird how if you hang around long enough, everything that goes around, comes around again. In the 1950-1960s, tons of big orgs of all kinds had various kinds of non-fraternization rules of varying strictness. Every teacher and students were expected to remain perfect strangers. By round about 1980 people were supposedly chafing under the injustice being done to consulting adults who just happened to work for the same company or institution, and "lover the one your with" and all that, and down came all the barriers of all kinds. The Roman Polanskis of the world rejoiced. Fast forward another 30 yrs, and the very idea of 'consulting adult' is considered a facist construct and individual agency a myth in a world of implacable institutional power. (yes I'm being hyperbolic for fun here). The rebound of course isn't back to exactly the image of the prior status quo, but there is a certain template to it all that make it amusing to me.

there are downsides to the sexual revolution.

[buddha]

2 hours ago, Edman85 said:

Maybe the investigation wasn't exactly shining her in the best light? It is possible, and it the reports are basically her side of the story.

the fact that she was perfectly happy to take money and personal gifts from tucker and say nothing, and then immediately report him for a rules violation says something about her motivations.

that doesnt excuse tucker's behavior, just because she flirts with you and takes your money doesnt give you the right to assume she wants to have phone sex with you, but i'd be interested to see the texts and conversations she was having with him.

after reading that usa today article i felt that tucker was making assumptions and then lying to investigators about it, but i dont really know.  its 2023 mel, if you have a professional relationship with someone, she's off limits  just dont even bother.  ESPECIALLY after all the stuff that's happened at msu.

but part of me is a little skeptical of her.  why are you letting him send you cash and buy you personal gifts?  isnt that unethical on her part?  if i'm taking personal gifts from a client i get fired.

[MichiganCardinal]

24 minutes ago, Hongbit said:

Justin trusts MSU leadership to follow the rules much more than I do.  
 

Maybe they were quiet tonight because they knew more than they should’ve all along.   Title IX rules are the AD isn’t supposed to know the details of the complaint.  After all that has gone down the past few years, I’m not ready to just take MSU leadership at their word that they know the rules.  With this administration, it’s easier to believe they botched protocol and shared important details with the wrong people when they weren’t supposed to.

At the press conference this evening, they only took three questions.

The first was about Mark Dantonio, and was pretty much fluff.

The second question taken, from Matt Wenzel, was, "I was wondering what the timeline you laid out for the... process of the investigation; I was wondering what changed to make you take action now, given what you knew before."

The response was, "Yeah Matt, we are always... evaluating... interim measures were in place, and those interim measures... have been updated... initially they were no contact with the... complainant and then also increased oversight from me of the program but also the coach so... it's an ongoing process and we update those interim measures as we receive information"

The third question was from Graham Couch, who asked "was there any consideration once the findings came out - when the investigation was complete in July - and you sort of had the information you do now of - (of) doing what you're doing now (suspending Tucker) - before the season, before it sort of interrupted what's going on with the student-athletes"

The response was, "Yeah, for me, Graham, it was, you know, working and waiting on the university as it relates to their investigative process and making sure that they were allowed to complete their investigation, so, although the investigation was complete on the 25th there were still ongoing processes that still need to be played out.

I suppose the last nine words to the response to Wenzel, and "ongoing processes" in the response to Couch, could be the quiet part that is getting reported now, but those are such bizarre responses to the questions if the real answer is a problem with the premise of the questions (that MSU leadership had knowledge of the USA Today story details well before they were published).

I think I'll take buddha's advice from earlier this afternoon and slow my roll until more information gets revealed.

[romad1]

I kinda wonder if the transfer departures were due to grapevine of this getting around. 

[Deleterious]

 

[Edman85]

 

[MIguy]

It is a bit strange that they had so many late night phone calls and that she didn't just hang up the phone if she was so offended by what was going on.   I also think we need to realize that just because someone has been a victim in the past, that doesn't mean they aren't capable of lying.   Unless there are recordings of the phones calls, this is always going to be a he said she said situation.  

[gehringer_2]

2 minutes ago, MIguy said:

It is a bit strange that they had so many late night phone calls and that she didn't just hang up the phone if she was so offended by what was going on.   I also think we need to realize that just because someone has been a victim in the past, that doesn't mean they aren't capable of lying.   Unless there are recordings of the phones calls, this is always going to be a he said she said situation.  

Yeah - the appearance of things has already begun to shift somewhat. Tucker is probably done at MSU regardless, but today (as compared to yesterday) I think the odds for him walking away with a lot more of his money have improved - so MSU as an institution will be screwed again.

[buddha]

12 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Yeah - the appearance of things has already begun to shift somewhat. Tucker is probably done at MSU regardless, but today (as compared to yesterday) I think the odds for him walking away with a lot more of his money have improved - so MSU as an institution will be screwed again.

this is the best thing that could have happened to msu football.  they get rid of their $80 million albatross.  if it costs them $40 million, its a bargain for them.

the flip side is that the same brain trust thst brought you mel tucker has to make the next decision.  their delusional fan base thinks theyre getting deion sanders.  in all likelihood, they'll hire whatever coach beat michigan sometime in the past two seasons.  is tcu's coach available?  is tcu's waterboy around?

[buddha]

mel tucker discovers the honey pot.

msu will pay her a few million tax free dollars and she can retire.  mel gets his settlement (and his wife gets half of that).  

and the lawyers take 40%.  as god intended.

[romad1]

MSU bringing back Dantonio is the weirdest thing.  I guess he was fine when he left?  

[casimir]

No Urban Meyer rumors yet?

[Deleterious]

Speaking of Urban. Netflix has a documentary called Swamp Kings about his time at Florida. I watched two episodes and it was basically an attempt to make Urban look good. They didn't even talk about Hernandez. 

[RatkoVarda]

so, she politely waited for him to ejaculate before ending the call?

Tracy said she thought to herself, "Oh my god, this is happening, and I can’t stop it." In the moment, she said, it didn’t occur to her to hang up. Eventually she said something along the lines of, “If you do this, I don’t ever want to hear about it, we are only friends, that’s it.”

[MIguy]

Listening to 97.1 and Gator just brought up that both Mel and Tracy deleted all text messages exchanged with each other.  I get why Tucker would delete his, but it's shady as hell that she deleted all of hers.   

[gehringer_2]

31 minutes ago, RatkoVarda said:

so, she politely waited for him to ejaculate before ending the call?

Tracy said she thought to herself, "Oh my god, this is happening, and I can’t stop it." In the moment, she said, it didn’t occur to her to hang up. Eventually she said something along the lines of, “If you do this, I don’t ever want to hear about it, we are only friends, that’s it.”

So I'm not going to make any assumptions here as to who is telling the truth and who is doing something less, but just given the above as the hypothetical, my question would be: When did we reach the point where no-one is responsible to exercise their own agency? 

I can't help a feeling that is much broader than this case in particular, that we are reaching a point where we have begun to conflate true power relationships that become abusive with simple economic proposition relationships that one side decides didn't bear enough profit. Lets just say - hypothetically, that Tucker was overstepping his boundaries - why does she accept that? He does not hold any true institutional power over her as a contractor, but maybe he can be a useful ally in securing new business or a potential detriment in steering it away. So he has an indirect kind of potential to affect her life - primarily an economic one.  But people win and lose business for a zillion irrelevant reasons every day based on other peoples' decisions. Do we really want to put the law - or some regulatory regime - into the arena when someone cultivates a 'personal' relationship for basically 'business (even if that 'business' is directed to a social benefit) reasons, and then it goes south? I wont accuse Tracy of this because I don't claim to have any idea who is telling the truth, but I can see that that is one of the possible explanations for what went down here - she doesn't want to just walk away because she doesn't want to tick him off because he can be a career aid. But to my view, that's tough cookies. There are hundreds of times in life you need to just walk away from something the might have benefited you but you didn't like the risk or ethics profile. That's part of adulthood. And I have this gnawing feeling that that is the direction the legal regime is heading, and I'm not sure it's where I would go.

Now all that said, I'm fine if MSU wants to fire Tucker for terrible judgement and questionable moral sense, but I'm less certain how much weight I'd give this case as a matter of 'abuse' - so far.

Edited September 12, 2023 by gehringer_2

[buddha]

39 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

So I'm not going to make any assumptions here as to who is telling the truth and who is doing something less, but just given the above as the hypothetical, my question would be: When did we reach the point where no-one is responsible to exercise their own agency? 

I can't help a feeling that is much broader than this case in particular, that we are reaching a point where we have begun to conflate true power relationships that become abusive with simple economic proposition relationships that one side decides didn't bear enough profit. Lets just say - hypothetically, that Tucker was overstepping his boundaries - why does she accept that? He does not hold any true institutional power over her as a contractor, but maybe he can be a useful ally in securing new business or a potential detriment in steering it away. So he has an indirect kind of potential to affect her life - primarily an economic one.  But people win and lose business for a zillion irrelevant reasons every day based on other peoples' decisions. Do we really want to put the law - or some regulatory regime - into the arena when someone cultivates a 'personal' relationship for basically 'business (even if that 'business' is directed to a social benefit) reasons, and then it goes south? I wont accuse Tracy of this because I don't claim to have any idea who is telling the truth, but I can see that that is one of the possible explanations for what went down here - she doesn't want to just walk away because she doesn't want to tick him off because he can be a career aid. But to my view, that's tough cookies. There are hundreds of times in life you need to just walk away from something the might have benefited you but you didn't like the risk or ethics profile. That's part of adulthood. And I have this gnawing feeling that that is the direction the legal regime is heading, and I'm not sure it's where I would go.

Now all that said, I'm fine if MSU wants to fire Tucker for terrible judgement and questionable moral sense, but I'm less certain how much weight I'd give this case as a matter of 'abuse' - so far.

we as a society have decided individuals are no longer responsible for their own actions.  everything is someone else's fault or society's fault.  just watch the legal industry.

[RatkoVarda]

one of the worst things Obama did was to expand Title IX to force schools to become investigators and adjudicators in cases that can destroy young lives (and it is almost exclusively young men facing down these tribunals.) Think about all the times professionals get it wrong, and now we have amateurs doing it. The lack of due process protections is just horrific.

(And Tucker is an idiot who deserves to be fired.)

 

[chasfh]

22 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Yeah - the appearance of things has already begun to shift somewhat. Tucker is probably done at MSU regardless, but today (as compared to yesterday) I think the odds for him walking away with a lot more of his money have improved - so MSU as an institution will be screwed again.

Pretty much what I was going to say. It doesn't matter if an investigation completely exonerates Tucker, he is through at this school, nd he's probably going to get mighty paid on the way out.

[Hongbit]

I still can’t move off the fact that Mel Is a giant idiot.   There is no job in America where it’s acceptable for a leader to get into a sexual relationship with the person they hired to teach sexual harassment training.    That’s a dead stop for me.  

Even if it was fully consensual, he’s got to know better.  Leaders lose their jobs all the time for consensual relationships with subordinates or vendors.   Dumb.