ESPN Owes Apology to MSU Coaches Dantonio and Izzo
Let me start off by stating the obvious. A person like Nassar should have never been able to operate the way he did in any setting, University or otherwise. The fact that he was able to do so is beyond imaginable. Michigan State University without a doubt needs to be held accountable for that whether they violated any rules or not (the NCAA cleared them late last month). I believe they are as multiple leaders including the President and Athletic Director have stepped down, others have been fired, and the university has started making payments to the victims. No one outside of those victims will ever truly understand what they’re going through and they deserve as much support from the school, community, and everyone else as possible. They rightly were awarded the Arthur Ashe Courage Award and will hopefully be the inspiration others need to speak up and stop these scandals and abuses from happening. This in no way is to take away from that.
ESPN owes an apology to Michigan State football coach Mark Dantonio and basketball coach Tom Izzo. They were dragged through the dirt and routinely thrown into the fire with the Nassar case as if they had some connection to it. ESPN even went so far as to release an Outside The Lines (OTL) report in January essentially accusing Dantonio and Izzo of cover-ups and routinely attempting to connect them with the Nassar case. They repackaged old news, yet left out important details. For example, near the end they state how four MSU players were charged with sexual assault, yet conveniently forgot to mention that those same four players were immediately dismissed from the team without so much as a hearing. As Mike Valenti stated earlier this year in his show, ESPN suggested that both coaches were tolerant of this type of behavior yet they only mentioned things where no charges were filed, where the prosecutor dismissed them, where Title IX and the police were involved and tried to paint a picture of cover-ups by Dantonio and Izzo. If you haven’t watched this video, I highly encourage you to take 15 minutes out of your day to do so.
There were no facts and no proof in that report. No email cover-ups like at Penn State and nothing where coaches are intimidating witnesses like at Baylor. ESPN pieced together random and old stories and conveniently aired it less than a day after Nassar was sentenced even though it had been filmed in August 2017, months before the sentencing.
After a near eight month investigation, the NCAA has cleared Michigan State in the Nassar response, basketball and football programs.
College football analyst Kirk Herbstreit had this to say in a since deleted tweet:
“Can’t wait to watch, read, and listen to ALL the follow up stories from the same folks that had @MSUBasketball and @MSU_Football Guilty Until Proven Innocent. Is that one reporter that followed Coach Izzo around at post game pressers gonna chase him down now?!?”
This is the third investigation to have cleared MSU programs. Yet, Max Kellerman of ESPN First Take is still calling for the death penalty for MSU programs. So the basketball, football, baseball, hockey, etc. programs should be given the death penalty because of one persons horrid and disgusting actions? Picture this, you’re at work and one of your co-workers does something disgusting and illegal. You’re unaware of who they are because they work in a different department, yet because they did something illegal you and the rest of your co-workers are all fired. Totally fair, right? I think not. Let’s not forget that the same person who said this was once suspended by ESPN for comments on Ray Rice and his own domestic violence.
There are still investigations going on at MSU, most notably by the Department of Education. So perhaps, ESPN may wait until then, but if that investigation also clears both sports programs, ESPN owes an apology for the uncalled for and unwarranted tarnishing of MSU coaches. The programs have handled everything by the rulebook, have been cleared, and there is still no evidence of any cover-ups eight months after the OTL report.
As always, if any actual evidence comes up about our programs I will be the first to retract my statements.