WACO -- Brenda Tracy was nervous around 2:15 p.m. Monday when a Baylor administrator pulled up in a Ford Escape at a Waco hotel to take her to campus.

She was taken on a brief tour of the campus off the banks of the Brazos River, saw the two bears kept on campus and went to football coach Jim Grobe's office.

Then came the hard part, the reason Grobe had invited her to Waco.

Tracy walked into a team meeting room full of athletes and coaches. She shared her experience of being raped, providing education to a football team and university reeling from a sexual assault scandal.

"I was prepared to walk into a very hostile environment," Tracy said. "I was very prepared to walk into a place where nobody wanted me there."

That didn't happen. By the end of her story involving an alleged rape by two Oregon State football players and two other men in 1998, the Baylor athletes were asking questions, and some approached her afterward to talk more.

"They weren't hostile toward me, and I didn't go in there trying to destroy their program," said Tracy, a registered nurse and Oregon native. "We got along, and it was OK. We all survived."

Grobe, the interim coach who replaced Art Briles in the wake of the scandal, said he watched the football and basketball players in the room attentive as Tracy told her story and talked about sexual consent and how to prevent what happened to her.

"I think her story is compelling and it's real-life stuff," Grobe said. "It opens everybody's eyes. It makes us look at this issue very seriously."

On Sunday, Tracy ate dinner with Grobe as they got to know each other. Instead of football, she said, he spoke about what the players are going through and what steps he can take.

"I think that's really important," Tracy said. "He actually cares about these kids."

Earlier this year, Tracy met with Nebraska football coach Mike Riley and his team about the same topic. Riley was the coach at Oregon State when Tracy told police that four men -- all football players, including two who played at the school -- had sexually assaulted her. The case was dropped after Tracy stopped cooperating once a district attorney told her the case was difficult to win, she said.

The police report in which the suspects confirmed much of Tracy's account sat in an unmarked manila folder in her closet for 15 years, unread until she needed to prepare for a 2014 article being written about the attack.

Tracy, a mother of two men now in their early 20s, recalled the details of that event at Baylor on Monday.

She didn't bring notes. She also didn't wear makeup under her eyes and hasn't for years, because she may cry at any time about that night in 1998, and her makeup would run.

When Tracy sees a football stadium, she thinks about the lives that have been ruined. But now as she travels to places like Baylor, she has another reaction.

"Not only do I feel for the victims when I see a stadium," Tracy said, "but I also see a huge potential for change.

"I guess it's bittersweet. It used to be just bitter. But today, it's bittersweet."

Twitter: @Ben_Baby