Anatomy of a Lynch Mob

(OTL is WOOB)
by: Rob Curnock
Anytown, The Old West, 1885.
The three men sat in their cells, peering at each other with sullen eyes that show
growing apprehension. They all strain to hear the cacophony of angry voices off in
the distance yet unseen in the dark of the night. Their stoic demeanor slowly
begins to transform into fear as they begin to understand the gravity of the
situation. They look at each other without saying a word. They don't have to.
They're all thinking the same thing.
How could this have happened? They were all minding their own business
overseeing the operations of the sprawling Bear ranch just outside town. They
were stunned when earlier that day the Sheriff came to the main ranch house and
asked them to come into town with him. They'd all been accused of being
involved in a rape the night before of a local school girl who just happened to be
the daughter of the popular mayor.
The accusations were not against them directly. They hadn't even heard the news
yet. Apparently some of their ranch hands may have been the culprits. In fact,
several men were not in their bunks the following morning. At the time, everyone
on the ranch assumed they'd moved on. That's just how it was with some
cowboys.
Sheriff Willis had his doubts because he'd known these three for years. This
seemed way out of character for any of them. However many vocal and some
influential town folk were angry. They wanted 'justice' and they wanted it now.
Willis knew he'd better do something or things would get ugly, not only for the
accused but also for his own re-election efforts next year.
He had no choice. The evidence was thus far circumstantial and those implicating
the three ranchers may have had dubious motives for accusing the ranchers. It
made no difference at this point, they had to be arrested. Besides, it'd all get
sorted out at the trial.
The voices were getting louder. There was no way to make out exactly what was
being said but every once in a while a shout could be heard above the din.
Hang 'em.
We'll show those sob's.... they aint above the law
The raucous noise was now just around the corner. All three now terrified
prisoners jumped to the cell window and peered through the bars.
Torchlight was creating a surreal mix of light and shadow swirling on the walls of

the buildings all around the jail.

The mob was still not visible but just around the corner and moving closer with
malevolent purpose. There was no doubt. They were now heading straight for the
jail. They wanted justice and they had three ropes to prove it.
The dark yet loud mass of people now came into view, lit sporadically by the
flickering torches that many carried.
Many citizens knew this was wrong. Even if the three men were guilty...the law
says that they're entitled to a fair trial. These level headed law abiding citizens
nervously peeked through the curtains of their windows, carefully trying not to be
seen by the huge mob filling the street. These good people were too afraid to say
or do anything for fear of bringing down the wrath of the mob on themselves. So
they just quietly observed the horrible scene and hoped that somebody,
somewhere, somehow would do something to stop what appeared to be
happening.
It was clear that there were a half dozen 'leaders' urging on the crowd. The rest of
the angry mob was carrying torches, and an alarming number of objects perfectly
suited to be makeshift weapons. The majority of dimly lit figures were actually a
fair representation of the town's ne'er-do-well types, mixed in with a number of
regular folks wanting to avenge the mayor's daughter and even some neighboring
ranchers who always seemed to be in conflict with the Bear ranch folks.
These vocal ring leaders had done their job of stoking the mob well.
They screamed at the top of their lungs, You know the Bear ranch types. They
think they're above the law. They think they're better than us. They despoil our
women folk and think they can get away with it. Well they can't, we here to make
sure they don't! We all know their guilty... they need to be punished.
The crowd roared with a renewed sense of fury. They moved to the front of the
jailhouse.
Bring 'em out!, they chanted in deadly unison.
The three prisoners were trapped. They could proclaim their innocence all they
wanted. No one in that crowd was going to listen or care.
Their fates were now in the hands of the Sheriff and his deputies. Would the
lawmen show incredible courage and do what was right...or would they succumb
to the furious blood-lust of the large mob?
Sheriff Willis stepped outside the door in a hopeless attempt to reason with the
teeming mass of irrational anger. He quickly retreated back in under a torrent of
deadly debris raining all around him.

The loud thuds of stones striking the walls sounded like an artillery barrage.
Shattering glass ended up as a macabre melody to the hideous roar as jail house
windows exploded and liquor bottles rained down on the building.
Most deputies now shared the same haunted look of dread on their faces as the
three prisoners upstairs.
Willis quickly studied the face of the deputies looking intently at him. They
gripped their guns ever more tightly. They were close to panic.
Willis had seen this same type of situation several years ago at the nearby town
of Dukeville. It did not end well for anyone involved in that fiasco. It all turned out
to be a terrible mistake. The alleged rape victim was found to be lying about the
whole thing. That mob would not be placated and a lot of good men were
destroyed before it was all sorted out.
Sheriff Willis began to waver....
***********************************
Welcome to Baylor University, 2016.
Who would've thought that any form of lynching could happen in this day and
age?
No way!
We as Americans know that we're now way too sophisticated and intelligent to be
manipulated into doing something illegal, immoral and just plain wrong. But that's
exactly what's happening today, thanks to the ESPN instigators stoking up the
public and demanding justice as they see it.
In this case, ESPN's Outside the Lines reporters Paula Lavigne and Mark Schlabach
believed they had uncovered a groundbreaking (and undoubtedly they hope
award winning) scandal at Baylor. That small conservative Baptist private school
in Texas that was the Clark Kent of college football until, courtesy of head coach
Art Briles, the Bears finally found a phone booth and changed into a very real
gridiron Superman.
Along the way in the last several years, as has happened on college campuses all
over the country for decades, charges of sexual assault surfaced involving a small
number of football players. According to ESPN's two investigative reporters, At
least some Baylor officials, including coaches, knew about many of the incidents,
and most players did not miss playing time for disciplinary reasons. They
reported it in such a way that the reader was urged somehow to conclude the
worst about the Baylor leaders.

Their inferences and conclusions were picked up with full-throated enthusiasm by

their colleagues in the national sports media.
Dan Walken of USA Sports intoned dramatically that '...it's fair to ask...whether
th(ese) kind of characters that Briles has brought to campus have systematically
put students in danger. ...the answer is yes.
'On their pod cast, Fox analysts Mandel and Bruce Feldman wanted to make sure
everyone understands that this is the school that tried to cover up a murder of a
basketball player and is led by the same Ken Star that investigated Bill Clinton
20 years ago.
The airwaves and print media unleashed an explosion of vitriol and a rush to
judgment against the school. Briles, Athletic Director Ian McCaw and School
President Ken Starr were specifically targeted. As ESPN's Zubin Mehenti later said
on a live ESPN broadcast...Yes it is indeed THAT Ken Starr. As if he needed to
make sure that everyone understood this was the former special prosecutor who
had famously investigated President Bill Clinton, as if that had any bearing on the
issue at hand. But it sure could act as a rallying cry for those people whose
politics made them yearn for some sort of retribution for the man who
'persecuted' Clinton.
With the full force of the famously left leaning and politically correct ESPN backing
them, Schlabach and Lavigne were quickly and predictably joined by a wide array
of sports analysts demanding something be done about Baylor. This is a Baylor
operating under at least an official guise of standard Biblical principles that fly
directly in the face of today's PC cultural dogma, militantly promoted and
espoused by the suits and their foot soldiers at ESPN. Diversity is great unless it's
diversity of ideology and values. Ask Curt Shilling about freedom of conservatives
to express their personally held beliefs. At ESPN, diversity of thought is not
tolerated unless it's approved thought.
Is it possible that there is some sort of political motivation buried somewhere in all
this outrage on the part of 'establishment' columnists? Make your own judgment.
Keep in mind that the United States is currently riven by a cultural civil war.
Traditional American values based on general Biblical principles are being rolled
back on every front, courtesy of a determined Obama administration and its allies
on the cultural left. A small conservative Christian University in Republican Texas
is perceived as a symbol of the old outdated ways of life and values, many of
which clash starkly with the new PC morality. What a blow to traditionalists if they
(ESPN) could take down such a preeminent rare prize.
Heisman trophy winner Robert Griffin the third and a prime example of Briles'
incredible recruiting capabilities, learned first hand when he drew the ire of one
ESPN analyst for ...not being black enough...and in fact, he may even be a
Republican!
Oh the horrors.

Thanks to the echo chamber effect of the national media, Schlabach and Lavigne
had the beginnings of a really good lynch mob. Their incitements had worked. The
shrill call for action was escalating.
As Fox sports analyst Stewart Mandel ominously declared in his echo chamber
column...Something's rotten at Baylor and it's way past time to pay attention.
Pat Forde of Yahoo sports said the continually broadening portrait OTL paints is
ugly, something needs to be done and it should start ...with Ken Starr who
seems to have left his famously potent moral outrage behind in the 1990's.
Tom Fornelli, Jon Solomon and Dennis Dodd of CBS sports quickly and dutifully
joined in with columns vilifying Baylor and demanding action. All their facts were
nothing more than an admitted rehash of the Lavigne Outside the Lines piece.
Fox's Feldmen wasn't content with just the outrage of his fellow sports pack media
members. He tried to expand the scope of the outrage by bringing in anonymous
coaches to the cause. Feldmen wrote, One longtime college head coach said
Wednesday the thing that stuck with him the most from the latest OTL report was
just the number of incidents and how many of the cases involving Baylor football
players leave big questions about what, if anything at all, was done to investigate
them. They're gonna have to fire him, aren't they?" a veteran college coach
asked. (I would add, almost hopefully)
SB Nation's Andy Hutchins declared that ... pressure's rising on Art Briles' job
status but then admitted that, ... the coaches Feldman spoke to may well have
their own axes to grind against the newly successful Baylor program (it's worth
noting his sources in the past have included coaches associated with some Texas
state rivals).
While the analysts went about the task of keeping the mob fired up and in line,
the internet comment lines brought out the best and brightest fans in the country
to weigh in on Baylor, viciously calling for blood.
I would love to see the Clinton DOJ go after Starr for his actions.
Starr is such a hypocrite. Can't believe Baylor had him as their president in the
first place.
...now they're finally checking in to it. sitting on it, paying no heed will cost the
baylor bums.
At least this time Starr wont have the 60 million to spend defending himself
which is the amount of taxpayer money he spent on going after the Clintons for
the twenty year old Whitewater land deal ( found nothing).
Art Briles is an amoral human being. He only cares about won-loss, not his
players, nor the students nor the community. In true Southern Baptist tradition,
Baylor is a hypocritical institution.
Those were some of the milder myriad of insults posted.
But the one that really sums up the dominant mindset of the current PC culture
came from a UT supporter comparing the 'morality' of the two schools and

incredibly bragging that, The difference being, UT fires them on the allegation of
rape. They don't make excuses for middle of the road players whilst they rape
student after student.
Now that's truly frightening, but right in line with the lynch mob mentality.
The OTL report insinuated and tried to convince the reader that Baylor was
somehow complicit and even possibly condoned these terrible incidents in an
effort to win football games. They wrote their explosive flawed propaganda and
sat back with satisfaction to assess the damage. They then actively pursued their
agenda by promoting a course of action for Baylor and all involved. Their goal and
only hope of success was if they could somehow get the Board of Regents to act.
The problem is that the Outside the Lines report, is constructed on a blatantly
flawed foundation. Flouting what even any first year law student knows, Lavigne
and Schlabach start with the simple premise that when the allegations and
accusations have to do with sexual assault, the accused is guilty until proven
innocent.
That's right, GUILTY until proven innocent. Where accusations are the paramount
concern. Due process and constitutional rights are dismissed and ignored as
irrelevant. The mere nature of the accusation warrants punishment of the accused
and everything associated with them.
Unbelievably their entire house of cards is built on this flawed premise as they
concoct their case against Baylor, Starr, McCaw, less than six athletes and the
Waco law enforcement community.
Outside the lines even has the gall to blur the lines by inflating the number of
'incidents' Baylor is supposed to have covered up. The main focus of the story
deals with sexual assault allegations. However the reporters ever so slightly
change the nature of the charges to include common assault. They toss in an
incident where a male student was attacked at a party. ESPN chose to mix that in
to inflate the sexual/assault number. Simple mistake or disingenuous, either way,
very inflammatory. Hard to catch it unless you pay very close attention.
It all begins with the sad fact of life that some men will take by force, that to
which they are not entitled. It's one thing when it's property, it's even more
heinous when it's sexual in nature taken from unwilling women. It's also a sad fact
that some women will accuse men of sexual assault even when none occurred.
That's why we have the rule of law and a sophisticated legal system to sort things
out. Sadly, many rape cases boil down to 'he-said, she-said'. It's up to the courts
and a jury of peers to determine who's telling the truth.
The very foundation of our legal system is the rock solid premise that a person is
'innocent until proven guilty'. That completely contradicts the rock solid premise
of today's PC culture, which is... the serious nature of the charge needs no proof of
guilt, especially when stemming from an approved victim class.

Make no mistake, this has been the modern day equivalent of a lynching. The only
positive in this instance is that in this case, the fatalities will be 'merely' the
reputations and careers of three good men. Still it's a sad day in America when
our judicial system is completely sacrificed on the altar of PC doctrine. At the
heart of this new doctrine is Title IX.
A former prosecutor with experience in dealing with sex crimes and Title 1X cases,
admitted that to him, Title IX is scary. and it's dangerous as it's being
used today... because the process is controlled by political pressures
that are so fundamentally unfair to the accused. All you have to do, is
simply make an accusation.
The ringleaders Lavigne and Schlabach didn't need archaic ropes. Their method of
execution was the powerful cabal of ESPN's print and broadcast media. By
convincing their allies in other media outlets to join in, there's plenty of rope to go
around.
The anonymous crowd no longer carries torches. The colorful light from their
computer screens, cell phones and tablets is much more efficient and doesn't
create harsh shadows. Besides the vitriol flows easily when you can hide behind
the cloaked safety of the internet and blast away at an institution your favorite
college team can no longer dominate in athletic competition.
Aside from the two tragic and brave sexual assault victims who received well
deserved justice in the courts, there are also victims of a different nature in this
case. Ancillary victims in this tragedy are Starr, Briles, McCaw (decent and
honorable men all to those who know them) and Baylor itself. The only thing
standing between these good men and certain professional and character
annihilation, was the defacto sheriff, then-chairman of the Board of Regents
Richard Willis and his deputy regents. They're the ones with the real power to
ignore the impotent illogical rantings of various media outlet pundits and wait for
the legal system to run its course.
In this case, the mob had no real power. They could only hope to stampede the
Regents into rushing to judgment in a vain effort to placate the irrational mob
screaming loudly before them. The question was, would the Regents allow their
own institution and it's unquestionably effective and loyal administrators to be
unfairly and tragically destroyed by those from the outside who have absolutely
no interest in what is best for Baylor? For those of us law abiding Baylor citizens
nervously and sadly watching from behind the curtains of our darkened windows,
our only hope was that cooler heads would prevail and the Regents would do the
right thing by relying on the criminal justice system.
Clearly ESPN, Lavigne and her ilk have their own agenda in this. It's most certainly

not Baylor's agenda. To those who understand the American justice system and a
sense of fair play...in this case, Outside the Lines was egregiously Way Out Of
Bounds. And make no mistake, they proudly own this.
Micheal Rosenberg of Sports Illustrated gives glory to his ringleaders, It has been
obvious for monthsthanks largely to excellent reporting from Texas Monthly and
ESPNs Outside the Linesthat Baylors football program had a major cultural
problem. Coach Art Briles had developed a culture that tolerated sexual assault, a
culture that lasted so long because Briles won so much. Think of how sickening
that sentence is.
Among OTL's contentions:
Outside the Lines has obtained documents that detail largely unknown
allegations of sexual assault, domestic violence and other acts of violence
involving several Baylor football players. The total number of players actually
charged and put on trial or will go to trial...three. The first found guilty had never
even been in uniform or played a down for Baylor. The second didn't play once the
legal process had begun and the third was indicted after his playing days were
over, costing him a chance at the NFL. Shawn Oakman will soon go to trial.
So we're talking about three actual crimes of assault taken through the justice
system. Three is too many, but hardly a 'culture' of sexual assault. All three
accused and their accusers had, or are having their day in court. The guilty have
been punished by a lawful legal entity.
Two victims are suing the University for significant monetary damages. Both
women will have their day in civil court and both may very well be compensated.
However, both women have also been given very public platforms courtesy of
ESPN and other media outlets to state their case. Once again if we're in a
legitimate court, the accused would have their opportunity to respond and cross
examine. No such niceties are granted to the accused in the ESPN trial.
Continuing on in an incredible example of understatement, OTL writes that, In
April, Outside the Lines reported that Baylor did not investigate a sexual assault
report made against football players Tre'Von Armstead and Shamycheal Chatman
for more than two years, despite the school's obligation to do so under federal
law. They never faced charges.
The key point here is that ...they never faced charges. If they never faced
charges, what exactly was the University supposed to officially and obligingly
investigate under Federal Law?
Were the provisions of Title IX intended to force a school to start an official
investigation of the man every time a couple had serious relationship issues?
Common sense dictates that there should be a threshold that has to be crossed
before an official action is initiated under the corollary mandate of the Clery act.
According to Know Your IX The Clery Act does not require a college or university

that receives a report of a campus crime to initiate an investigation, nor does it

permit a university to release identifying information about a victim. Clery Act
crime reports include only the date of the report, the date of the crime, and the
general location.
After the first round of ESPN attacks on Baylor football in the wake of the
Ukwuachu trial, Baylor President Starr, in an effort to show transparency and blunt
the attacks, announced that the school would contract with Pepper Hamilton in
Philadelphia to conduct an exhaustive investigation regarding the entire matter.
This may have been his first and fatal mistake.
It should be noted that Pepper Hamilton makes its living adjudicating Title IX
matters, so while they may be expert in issues relating to Title IX, it would seem
only logical that the main scope of Pepper Hamilton's findings revolve around
Baylor's actions in relation to Title IX mandates. Pepper Hamilton would never
question or determine the constitutional difficulties with the act itself. That's not
their mission nor would they probably even want to question the act itself since
they make a good living from it.
Therefore, when the firm comes back to the school with its report, it should be no
surprise that they appear to conclude that the most egregious failings of Baylor,
Briles, McCaw and Starr are centered around procedural requirements of Title IX.
This is borne out by the excerpts of the Pepper Hamilton findings that were
released in a statement by Baylor media communications:
Key findings of the investigation reflect a fundamental failure by Baylor to
implement Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX) and the
Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 (VAWA). The findings
include:
The University's student conduct processes were wholly inadequate to
consistently provide a prompt and equitable response under Title IX; Baylor
failed to consistently support complainants through the provision of interim
measures; and in some cases, the University failed to take action to identify
and eliminate a potential hostile environment, prevent its recurrence or
address its effects.
Actions by University administrators directly discouraged some
complainants from reporting or participating in student conduct processes
and in one instance constituted retaliation against a complainant for
reporting sexual assault.
In addition to broader University failings, Pepper found specific failings
within both the football program and Athletics department leadership,
including a failure to identify and respond to a pattern of sexual violence by
a football player and to a report of dating violence.

 There are significant concerns about the tone and culture within Baylor's
football program as it relates to accountability for all forms of student
athlete misconduct.
Over the course of their review, Pepper investigated the University's
response to reports of a sexual assault involving multiple football players.
The football program and Athletics department leadership failed to take
appropriate action in response to these reports.
But again, what exactly is the University supposed to respond to? Even according
to the OTL's own reporting, when informed of actual official action taken by the
proper law enforcement agencies, the players were removed from the team
pending the results of the investigation/prosecution. Until action is taken by law
enforcement or charges officially filed...what exactly was Briles supposed to do?
Deny the due process and constitutional rights of the accused players by
immediately punishing them, taking away their scholarships and kicking them off
the team? And do this in spite of a situation where charges were either never filed
or dropped or denied altogether by the accusers!? This type of action would then
make Baylor vulnerable to some serious civil jeopardy by the accused if nothing
comes of the accusation.
And herein is where it all comes together in one terrible tangle of convoluted
logic. According to the media mob that bore down on Baylor, Starr, McCaw and
Briles, there was no room for common sense, moral equivocation or reasoned
thoughtful action. The players needed to be punished in every way possible. The
accusations were too serious. The accused players just had to be guilty. By extent,
Briles was now complicit and needed to be punished for not falling into Title IX line
and declaring his players guilty until proven innocent.
Perhaps the real problem here is Title IX. This is the same Title IX that the Obama
administration is currently using as a pretext to bludgeon schools to open up
bathrooms/facilities in the transgender mess, but that's a whole other issue which
will take us deep into the political weeds. It was controversial with its social
engineering back when it was first passed and many of the criticisms of its
provisions are proving to be problematic today.
Again, the former prosecutor with extensive Title IX experience on both sides of
the docket...
Title IX is being used as a disciplinary prosecutorial tool. The danger is
that it requires the school to create a quasi-criminal process but without
protecting the fundamental rights of the accused. The (accused) kid

doesn't have the ability to confront the accuser and doesn't realize that
he needs a lawyer before talking to anyone concerning any incident in
question or... that can, and is used against him in the investigation. In
addition, if they talk to a coach, the coaches are put into the position of
having to report everything, no matter how trivial or questionable... and
assume the player is guilty.
It really is unconstitutional in the way it denies due process to the
accused.

If this is the true unintended consequences of Title IX, this is unthinkable that this
could actually be happening in America today. The potential ramifications are
absurdly chilling. It's getting to the point where it would be wise for any male
student to keep his girlfriend extremely happy at all costs, or else don't ever date.
The OTL report continued to try and build its case in the court of public opinion.
A Baylor student told Outside the Lines that she notified football team chaplain
Wes Yeary about what she had reported to Waco police in April 2014: that her
boyfriend, a Bears football player, had physically assaulted her on two occasions.
The woman said Briles and university president Ken Starr were also told of her
allegations. The woman told Outside the Lines that neither Briles nor the
university disciplined her ex-boyfriend.
At this point in a legitimate court proceeding, any lawyer with even half a law
license is jumping up to object on grounds that her statements are pure hearsay.
Any sane judge would say...sustained. However, in the show trial of public
opinion presided over by ESPN...this is considered compelling evidence.
As stated by lynch mob leader Paula Lavigne on a live ESPN broadcast ...are they
finally going to be transparent? Is Ken Starr going to do an interview? Is Art Briles
actually going to engage in a real interview on this topic? Until one of them is
sitting in a chair in front of me, Until I see some evidence of the Pepper Hamilton
report, then I'm sorry, it's the same thing over and over.
The arrogance of Lavigne is truly breathtaking as she clearly believes in her mind
that she is the prosecuting DA, jury and judge all rolled into one. Unfortunately
with the craven capitulation of the Board of Regents...evidently her delusional
affectations were correct.
In a continued denial of reality, OTL writes itself into a corner with several more
contradictions of its own accusations.
In another case, a sexual assault allegation against a former star player has
remained in Waco police's open-case status for four years, which, under Texas

open records laws, effectively shields the case's details from public view. The
player and the alleged victim deny any assault took place, and in a separate
criminal investigation, Waco police noted that officers had dealt with the woman
as part of other allegations she had made against various people and concluded
she was "deceptive."
Okay OTL, so what's your point? There's clearly no there... there!
Is it part of your broader narrative that Waco law enforcement was somehow
colluding with Briles and Baylor to cover all this up? You even address this vague
and irresponsible accusation with Waco Police Department spokesman Patrick
Swanton. "If you break the law and we have probable cause to arrest you, it
doesn't matter if you're a football player," Swanton said. "We're not going to give
you leeway."
So a respected law enforcement officer goes on the record and flatly denies this
reckless OTL contention and it's just glossed over as if Swanton is irrelevant? This
pattern of the self-undermining of its own findings continued repeatedly throughout the rest of the inflammatory 'report'.
OTL admits, yet ignores its own reporting that clearly show Briles had no reason to
arbitrarily punish these players:
The other 'incidents' have been denied by the accused and no official legal
action was taken.
...the woman was uncertain about pressing charges, and no legal action
was taken.
An officer prepared an arrest warrant for Stephenson but closed the case
when the woman did not return several phone messages.
The woman, who initially denied to Outside the Lines she was the same
person who reported the incident to police, later acknowledged trying to get
Dixon in trouble by filing the report.
... a neighbor who said he saw Dixon pull the woman's hair and push her
into a car; both Dixon and woman deny that happened.
In the April 2014 case, a woman told Waco police that Bears running back
Devin Chafin grabbed her arm and slammed it against a car...In the police
report, the officer wrote that the woman was uncertain about pressing
charges, and no legal action was taken. Chafin played in nine of 13 games
the following season, including the season

opener.
Any objective reader with basic comprehension skills would see a clear pattern
here. No one would argue that these few players are choir boys, but it keeps
coming down to he-said, she-said. Not only between the accusers and the
accused, but between OTL and the entities/individuals it accuses of wrongdoing!
Who's right? That's what we're supposed to have a judicial system to decide. In
the case of ESPN however, an added question is, if this was a legal proceeding,
what lawful standing does ESPN even have to begin with?
So yet again, ESPN's Lavigne is demanding action on criminal incidents that never
legally/officially happened by the choice of the accuser (for whatever reasons). It's
the same with all these incidents reported by ESPN itself. They are demanding
some vague level of disciplinary action for unpleasant incidents which according
to our judicial system never actually happened. Once again, how is Briles or
anyone else supposed to satisfy the obtuse onerous proscriptions of Title IX, when
a common sense threshold for action is not crossed? Talk about OTL constructing
a Catch 22 scenario.
From the AP, ...Starr and football coach Art Briles have faced sharp criticism
about whether Baylor ignored allegations of assaults by players, two of whom
were later convicted of sexual assault.
That may be true, but it's very clear that this 'sharp criticism' all goes back to the
original OTL primordial swamp of false accusations built on an illegal premise of
'guilty until proven innocent'. The accused players have rights and Briles
was right to stand by them until the legal system said it was time for
him to do otherwise.

This is all a sad variation on the disgusting events that took place in the Duke
lacrosse fiasco. School officials lost their jobs, students' lives were wrecked and
the school was put under a cloud of racism and class warfare. At that time, the PC
lynch mob was spurred on by the reporting of ESPN and others in the mainstream
media all working on their own political agendas.
With this despicable sacrifice of Briles in this Baylor incident, the ESPN lynch mob
is now two for two. It turned out they were wrong with Duke. They are wrong with

Baylor. No institution of higher learning can control the actions of its student
athletes 24-7. Not even institutions of the penal variety have that ability with their
inmates. This is however the beginning of a whole new area of law and it will
become a goldmine for smart trial lawyers. They now have new case law to
prospect as they try to convince juries that schools are financially responsible for
the actions of their athletes at all times. This will become a lot messier before it
gets better. Baylor is just the beginning, as these types of cases are quickly
spreading all across the country.
The prospect for college sports is truly frightening. Sadly if the Board of Regents
thought they would end the media onslaught by sacrificing Briles, they are badly
mistaken. The headline for SI's Rosenberg summed it up the day after, declaring
with brazen certainty, Art Briles firing confirms rotten culture Baylor tolerated to
win.
So, no. There will be no restoration of Baylor to the good graces of the mob. They
destroyed Baylor's football messiah and that bogeyman to the political Left, Ken
Starr. Thanks to the rash action of the Regents, ESPN won and their mob minions
will exalt with their trophy. They'll take satisfaction as more talented recruits
decommit from Baylor in the wake of the Briles travesty. In the recesses of their
angry minds, they understand that Baylor will most likely go back to the football
cellar 'where it belongs' ...and all will be well in college football again.
********************
I have an 18 year old niece in far away Western New York who badly wants to
attend Baylor. When talking of her collegiate plans to schoolmates, there is
genuine awe and positive affirmation of her school choice. Even in far off
suburban Buffalo, high school students all now know of Baylor and what a 'cool'
place it seems to be. Of course the only exposure they have is the first impression
they've been given through the athletic efforts of Briles, McCaw and Starr. These
kids don't really know or fully understand the tempest being manufactured by
ESPN's OTL reporters. They just know that Baylor has become a sports power to
be reckoned with...and they always have really awesome uniforms.
I'm one of those timid law-abiding fair-minded people peaking through the
curtains hoping that someone would stand up to the ugly mob. Sadly, that didn't
appear to be happening. So after taking a deep breath and gathering every ounce
of moral indignation I could muster, I slowly let the curtain fall back into place,
turned away from the window and moved out into the street.

I decided to take a stand and confront the mob. Not because I'm courageous...but
because it's the right thing to do.
Much too my eternal shame... I was too late. Sheriff Willis caved and his deputies
scattered. Briles, McCaw and Starr were thrown to the mob in a cowardly and
futile attempt to placate them.
The town of Baylor will never be the same.

Rob was a longtime sports anchor/reporter for KWTX-TV, as well as an award-winning

news/political reporter for KWTX-TV . He's been actively involved in Central Texas politics.