Yesterday, a now-former defensive end at Baylor University was sentenced to six months in jail for sexually assaulting a female athlete. However, his trial has raised questions about how he got on campus in the first place. For most of the last 24 hours, accusations have been flying about that Baylor allowed the player to transfer from another school despite being aware of his history of domestic violence.
Earlier this week, Sam Ukwachu was convicted of sexually assaulting a player on the Bears’ women’s soccer team during Baylor’s homecoming week in October 2013. The woman, who has since transferred, testified that Ukwachu stripped off her clothes and assaulted her. As she yelled “No!” several times, Ukwachu reportedly told her, “This isn’t rape.” Incredibly, a jury only recommended that Ukwachu get eight years’ probation. To his credit, district judge Matt Johnson sentenced him to jail time, as well as 10 years’ probation and 400 hours of community service. He will also have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Just hours after the sentence was handed down, Washington coach Chris Petersen dropped a bombshell. Petersen had coached at Boise State from 2006 to 2013. In May 2013–during spring practice of what would be his last season with the Broncos–he kicked Ukwachu off the team. When Ukwachu expressed interest in transferring to a school near his hometown of Pearland, Texas–a suburb of Houston–Petersen said he got in touch with Baylor coach Art Briles. Petersen told ESPN that he “thoroughly apprised” Briles of Ukwachu’s past–including his history of domestic violence and other violent behavior. Indeed, a former girlfriend of Ukwachu’s at Boise State testified that Ukwachu hit her in the head several times, choked her, and prevented her from leaving.
When Briles got wind of this claim from Petersen at Friday morning’s practice, he denied that such a conversation ever took place. He told reporters, “Find out who informed us and talk to them, please.” Later, Briles issued a statement saying that Petersen never told him about any history of domestic violence from Ukwachu. All that was mentioned about Ukwachu’s past, according to Briles’ side of the story, was “a rocky relationship with his girlfriend” that sent him into depression. The only disciplinary issues on Ukwachu’s ledger were “team-related issues” like missing practice and being mouthy with coaches.
Ukwachu never played a down for Baylor. He missed the 2013 season under NCAA transfer-eligibility rules. After Baylor officials investigated the October 2013 incident in the spring of 2014, they didn’t feel there was enough evidence to proceed. However, when prosecutors indicted him in June 2014, school policy required Briles to suspend him, and he sat out the entire 2014 season. Baylor was prepared to let him suit up for this season if he hadn’t been convicted. He has already graduated, and was taking graduate classes at Baylor at the time of his conviction.
The question here is obvious. Did Briles know that Ukwachu had a history of domestic violence? We may get an answer to that question sooner or later. Baylor is mounting an internal review of how it handled the domestic violence allegations against Ukwachu, to be led by Jeremy Counsellor, a Baylor law professor who is also the school’s faculty athletics representative to the Big 12 Conference. School president Ken Starr says this will be a “comprehensive internal inquiry.”
Briles has worked wonders at Baylor. When he arrived at Baylor in 2008, he inherited a program that had not had a winning season in 14 years and had won a grand total of 12 conference games since the Big 12’s formation in 1996. Since then, he’s reeled off five consecutive bowl appearances, two consecutive conference titles (one outright, one shared), and two consecutive 11-win seasons. But none of that should even begin to be enough if the investigation finds that Briles knew about Ukwachu’s history of domestic violence and let him come to Waco anyway. If that were the case, basic decency would demand that Briles be fired.
