Due Process (Joe Dillard #9)(28)
“Oh, man,” Armstrong said. “What a powder keg.”
“Do you want me to arrest them?”
“Not yet,” Armstrong said. “Keep it under your hat for now, and let’s pray to God we get some DNA evidence.”
FRIDAY, AUGUST 30
University President Dr. Dean Brady was holding yet another meeting late Friday afternoon with the same group with whom he’d been meeting throughout the week. This meeting, however, would be a bit different.
Seated around the table were George Darden, the university’s lead lawyer, Raymond Winters, the athletic director, Blakely Burton, the director of university relations and Mike Springer, the head football coach.
“We might as well get right to it,” Brady said. He was a clean cut, handsome man with short, salt and pepper hair parted neatly on the left side of his head. His countenance was that of a banker or a politician who took excellent care of himself. He was partial to bow ties, and was wearing a black and white polka-dotted one at the meeting. “I’ve had many discussions with the Board of Trustees over the past few days and we’ve made some decisions. They’ve been extremely difficult decisions, but I feel we’ve made them with this university’s best interests at heart.”
Dr. Brady looked across the table at Coach Springer.
“Coach,” he said, “we’re going to let you go. I’m sorry, but I can’t get past the fact you didn’t know that fifty or sixty young men for whom you are ultimately responsible could throw a party involving a stripper. Either your senior leadership let you down, or you haven’t taught them how to be leaders. Either way, as much as I hate it, this axe falls on you. We’ve also decided to forfeit the first two games of the season as punishment to the team for their behavior and to let the community know we’re taking this seriously. We’re also suspending the three senior captains who hosted the party, Kevin Davidson, Dominic Vasso, and Henry Treadway, for the remainder of the season. We haven’t yet decided which one of your assistants will become the interim head coach, but that decision will be made in the next couple of hours. The rest of the staff is safe for now.”
Springer looked down at the table and then back up at Brady. Bags had formed under his eyes during the week, Brady noticed, certainly from stress and lack of sleep. His eyes were now glistening with tears.
“I’m sorry I let you down, and I understand to a certain degree,” Springer, who, at sixty-two, was still a powerfully built man with a full head of gray hair, said. “I figured this would ultimately fall on me. Part of me accepts it, and part of me doesn’t. They’re college kids, for goodness sake, and whether you or anyone else wants to believe it or talk about it, they’re interested in the opposite sex. And I can’t be expected to keep tabs on them twenty-four hours every day. Should they have hired a stripper? No. Should they suffer some consequences for that? Of course, because circumstances arose that have caused the university embarrassment. But there was no rape. There was no crime committed. I’d bet my life on it. I don’t agree with the forfeits and I don’t agree with the suspensions. They’re too harsh. These guys have already been through the wringer, Dr. Brady. And suspending Kevin and Dominic and Henry for the season, which effectively ends their football careers? That’s just heartless. You don’t know those guys the way I do. They made a mistake, but they’re good kids.”
“Coach,” Brady said. “You’re a good man. I thought that when we hired you and I still feel the same. I know you’ve been under a lot of strain, but so have all of us, and to be honest, I don’t care whether you agree with my decisions. You have two years left on your contract. We discussed simply firing you under the lack of institutional control clause in your contract and not paying you, but instead, we’ll be exercising our option under the buyout clause, so we’re not just leaving you high and dry. I’ll expect you to have your things cleared out of your office by midday tomorrow. That’s all, Coach Stringer. I wish you the best. You can go now.”
“So that’s it?” Stringer said, raising his hands.
“That’s it. Please don’t make me call the campus police.”
Stringer rose from his chair and walked out the door without another word. Brady, along with the rest of the group, watched him go.
“Okay, that’s done,” Brady said. “Blakely, you and George can go, too. Raymond, you stay.”
The university relations director and the university lawyer got up and left, leaving only the athletic director in the office.
“What have you found about Title IX violations? Tell me the damned truth,” Brady said.
Winters, a veteran of the bureaucratic wars in college athletics, simply shook his head.
“I practically threatened to kill Rhonda James with my bare hands if I found out she was hiding anything,” Winters said.
Rhonda James was the Title IX administrator at the university, in charge of documenting and conducting investigations of claims of sexual abuse against female students.
“And she said there’s nothing?”
“She has no way of knowing if a tennis coach or a baseball coach or basketball coach hid something,” Winters said. “But we don’t have anything ongoing, and we don’t have anything unresolved or suspicious that I’m aware of.”