Tennessee Vols coaches called a Tuesday morning press conference to discuss the recent issues around the program. See the video and learn how stupid it was.
In light of the recent sexual assault lawsuit against the University of Tennessee and all of the news surrounding the program’s treatment of victims in recent years, combined with the Peyton Manning scandal, 16 Tennessee Volunteers coaches held a press conference on Tuesday morning to discuss the perception of the program.
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You can view the press conference on this Periscope account here.
Take a look at it. Listen to it. And realize how stupid it was.
From the outset, the PR team made it clear that they could not really discuss the ongoing lawsuit. So instead, they talked about the culture.
Already, this is useless.
Then came the first discussion of the night: the impact the perception has had on recruiting. Never mind those claiming to be victims. Never mind the public perception issue. Never mind this has hit Tennessee during the same time period in which we saw major institutions, from Florida State football to Penn State football to even institutions beyond football, including Bill Cosby, being humiliated because of major allegations involving sex victims.
Instead, let’s talk about how this is affecting the biggest thing that has an impact on whether or not the teams can win.
One by one, the coaches went around talking about that. Even the major coaches embarrassed themselves. Butch Jones talked about how players love visiting campus and going to games.
Many other coaches stuck to that narrative and the narrative of building relationships individually with recruits.
To which most of us say, why does that matter? We get this was a PR move, but it was an idiotic one.
When Joe Paterno was fired for how he handled the Jerry Sandusky scandal, the most sickening thing that came was his supporters was the defense of everything he did for the university. They threw that out as if it can offset what went wrong.
Although the Tennessee scandal at this point does not appear to be as bad as what happened at Penn State, the point remains the same. How does a coach’s support for players and the teams exciting atmosphere on game day offset the the way that program may or may not treat victims of sexual assault? It doesn’t.
To be fair, Holly Warlick had a powerful statement by talking about her experience as a woman in the athletic department, which dates back to the 1980s when the worst of what was happening appeared to be going on. She also said she would want her daughter to attend the university.
That helped, and at least she tried to address the culture of the program. But for the most part, this wreaked of an awful PR stunt. We always knew this would be a PR stunt, but the substance was so useless that it looks even worse.
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To be clear, we are not blaming any particular coach here. We are not addressing what did or did not happen in a lawsuit. What we are saying is that promoting other things about the university do not offset this incident.
And as such, the press conference on Tuesday morning was useless.