Usually, the last My Two Cents before Labor Day is dedicated to my guaranteed lock predictions on the upcoming Wisconsin Badgers Football season. But this year I thought I’d switch it up and look back on the off-season instead.
In Madison, two wide receivers expected to start this year are suspended–one for allegedly sexually assaulting two women at the same time–and the other for taking pictures and video of the incidents. In Maryland, their strength and condition coach was fired and their head coach is suspended, pending an internal investigation into allegations that a player was made to run in extreme heat during off-season workouts to the point that he collapsed into a coma and died two weeks later. The head coach is also accused of creating an atmosphere of “intimidation, fear and humiliation” in the locker room by insulting players and screaming at them all the time.
Meanwhile, Ohio State prepared for their season by suspending their head coach for the first three games for failing to properly report allegations of domestic violence against a former assistant coach and then lying about the incident to the media, and then deleting text messages between himself and the alleged victim and then claiming that he just forgot about all of the accusations. Ohio State is also dealing with accusations that a former wrestling team doctor molested hundreds of athletes–who filed complaints but the school did nothing–and now their former coach–who is running for Speaker of the House after Paul Ryan departs–is calling them a bunch of liars.
It’s pretty much the same over at Michigan State, where a former athletic department doctor was found guilty of molesting hundreds–if not thousands–of women and girls across the country under the auspices of medical care and physical examinations. All of the coaches in East Lansing claim they never heard about any misconduct. The NCAA just ruled this week that Michigan State did nothing wrong in keeping him on staff for decades. Meanwhile over at Penn State, the push is on to restore honors to their legendary former coach who ignored and tried to cover up the sexual assault of dozens of boys by a former assistant coach in school facilities. And in Minnesota their second year head coach–who believes you win football games by rowing a boat–is still trying to rebuild a program that fired his predecessor for supporting a players’ boycott of games because some of them were accused of sexual assault and suspended per university policy.
I’m sure I missed a few other sexual assault allegations or weapons possession cases or physical assault suspensions at the other Big Ten schools–and there will likely be more throughout the season. As I’ve asked before, if you were starting a university from scratch today, would you include a department on campus that brought this kind of embarrassment and legal headaches? I guess if it guaranteed 75-thousand people showed up every Saturday and forked over big bucks for tickets and sweatshirts and caps, you’d be willing to look the other way and sully the good name of your institution. Besides, once that first kickoff is in the air–and all of the suspended players and coaches return–nobody will even mention all the stuff I just listed.
If you would still like a season prediction, Wisconsin beats Minnesota for the 15TH CONNESECUTIVE YEAR–making this another highly-successful season.
