Randy Smith
After another rousing bowl game win, and another great recruiting class for the Tennessee Volunteers, it's time to get back down to earth. Things are not as good as they might seem in Knoxville. A culture of sexual aggression, as well as sexual entitlement for student athletes seems to be running rampant on campus. On Tuesday, a lawsuit was filed in federal court by six women who claimed the university "has created a student culture that enabled sexual assaults by student-athletes especially football players, and then uses an unusual, legalistic adjudication process that is biased against victims who step forward."
Last summer, a very reliable source, told me that he was concerned about inappropriate parties and activities on campus involving student-athletes. Some even relied upon prescription drugs to enhance their involvement, so to speak.
Yesterday, the Nashville Tennessean released additional details about the lawsuit, stating that a former player was assaulted by his teammates after he allegedly helped a woman who was raped by two players. That former player is Drae Bowles who transferred to UTC following the 2014 season.
The two players, A.J. Johnson and Michael Williams are awaiting trial this summer, while Bowles has been subpoenaed to testify. The lawsuit also accuses U.T. of violating Title IX laws by acting with "deliberate indifference to the serious risks of sexual assaults and failing to take corrective measures."
As more and more details come out about this lawsuit, it appears that it's more than just, "boys will be boys," though that may be exactly the way the administration sees it. The precedent has been set at Colorado in 2007 and more recently at Florida State, where the school was forced to pay out almost a million dollars to the woman who was allegedly raped by Jameis Winston.
The scenario at Tennessee is not unlike the recent despicable actions at Ooltewah High School where the culture of preferential treatment and entitlement for student-athletes was allowed to go unchecked much too long. When the dam broke, it brought down an entire group of coaches and administrators from the bottom all the way to the top.
Named in the lawsuit are Tennessee Chancellor Jimmy Cheek, Athletic Director Dave Hart and head football coach Butch Jones. They are the ones who are held responsible for failing to act when the very first allegations were brought to their attention. They are the ones who stand to lose the most as a result of this lawsuit.
Wins are important in the fabulous world of college football, but not more important than the treatment of women on campus. It seems that Tennessee may be slow to learn the lessons offered by other universities. It is bad enough to have this kind of behavior on campus, but much, much worse to allow it to go unchecked and unpunished.
Today on many levels, athletes are pampered and coddled and the higher the level of play, the worse it gets. From grades in the classroom, to deplorable actions in the dorms, somewhere along the line, our coaches and administrators seem to have forgotten that helping to create strong young men and good citizens is every bit as important as winning games and championships. Perhaps that aspect of college football needs to be revisited.
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Randy Smith has been covering sports on radio, television and print for the past 45 years. After leaving WRCB-TV in 2009, he has written two books, and has continued to free-lance as a play-by-play announcer. He is currently teaching Broadcasting at Coahulla Creek High School near Dalton, Ga.
His career has included a 17-year stretch as host of the Kickoff Call In Show on the University of Tennessee’s prestigious Vol Network. He has been a member of the Vol Network staff for thirty years.
He has done play-by-play on ESPN, ESPN II, CSS, and Fox SportSouth, totaling more than 500 games, and served as a well-known sports anchor on Chattanooga Television for more than a quarter-century.
In 2003, he became the first television broadcaster to be inducted into the Greater Chattanooga Area Sports Hall of Fame. Randy and his wife Shelia reside in Hixson. They have two married children, (Christi and Chris Perry; Davey and Alison Smith.) They have four grandchildren, Coleman, Boone, DellaMae and CoraLee.