Baylor, Art Briles ignored responsibility in admitting Sam Ukwuachu

Dan Wolken | USA TODAY Sports

When Art Briles recruited Sam Ukwuachu to Baylor University, he turned every female on campus into a potential victim. When Briles' superiors signed off on bringing the talented defensive end to Waco, they tacitly approved of putting students in harm's way.

It was all right there in the most basic of investigations into Ukwuachu's exit from Boise State, when he was dismissed from the program in May 2013 because he attacked his girlfriend. Despite the clear warning signs of violent behavior, Baylor had brought Ukwuachu into their community because, by golly, he sure could help the pass rush. Five months later, all that had really changed about Ukwuachu's tendencies was the venue.

On Thursday, in a district court in Waco, Ukwuachu was found guilty of sexually assaulting a former Baylor women's soccer player, who was 18 and in her first semester of college in October 2013 when the big-shot football transfer twice her size attacked her.

Maybe if she had been warned that the Baylor football player in her tutoring sessions once became so crazed during a domestic dispute at Boise that he broke a window, she wouldn't have even been in position to be in his apartment that night. Maybe if Briles, athletics director Ian McCaw and school president Ken Starr had looked at his background and realized Ukwuachu didn't belong at Baylor, she wouldn't have had to go get a rape kit the next morning.

Ukwuachu, who is expected to be sentenced on Friday, never played a down of football for Baylor, but that really isn't the point.

Whether he played or not doesn't change the fact that he would have never been given a scholarship without a football talent so irresistible to Briles that the obvious red flags were rationalized or outright ignored.

And it's time college coaches and athletics administrators start being held accountable for recruiting decisions that put other students at risk. Is it really too much to ask the highest-paid person at a university to consider the safety of the campus community when he puts together his football roster?

There are plenty of problems with the way Baylor handled this. Its internal investigation of the rape allegation was so insufficient that the judge wouldn't allow it to be used by Ukwuachu's lawyer during the trial, according to an article in Texas Monthly. Baylor's lack of transparency about the situation and the inept performance of the local media in pursuing why Ukwuachu was suspended for the 2014 season all point to a program that was hoping it would go away.

A statement released by the university's public relations department following the verdict said: "Acts of sexual violence contradict every value Baylor University upholds as a Christian community. In recent years we have joined university efforts nationally to prevent campus violence against women and sexual assault, to actively support survivors of sexual assault with compassion and care, and to take action against perpetrators. We have established and fully staffed a Title IX office that employs a Title IX Coordinator and two full-time investigators. Maintaining a safe and caring community is central to Baylor's mission and at the heart of our commitment to our students, faculty and staff."

That sounds nice, but in reality this was an avoidable situation for Baylor. Without the cult of the coach and the mythical narrative of second chances, any legitimate, objective investigation into why Ukwuachu was thrown out of Boise State would have yielded significant enough concerns to move along to the next defensive end.

Of course mistakes happen, some of which could never be predicted. Of course there are going to be issues with a team of 18-to-22 year olds. Of course some people deserve second chances.

But the idea that football exists at a place like Baylor to harbor and rehabilitate someone with a documented history of issues like the ones that got Ukwuachu thrown out of Boise State? That's lunacy, and it shouldn't be acceptable for anyone sending a daughter to college.

Briles and his administrative enablers were willing to ignore that risk because Ukwuachu was good at football, just like Alabama's Nick Saban rationalized Jonathan Taylor's domestic violence issues at Georgia (he's since been dismissed).

They aren't the first and they won't be the last, but it's time for people who care about college football to stop absolving the Coach Almighty from their responsibility in making campuses safe for women.