Rutgers' head football coach, Kyle Flood, pressured a faculty member to keep one of his players eligible to play for the Scarlet Knights this season. The New Jersey state university suspended Flood for the next three games and fined him $50,000.
From the New York Times:
Academic advisers had made Flood aware of the student's struggles in a class in April. The student;s final grade, issued in May, made him ineligible for this season, the report said.Five Rutgers players were booted from team this year after being arrested--four for assault, the other for allegedly committing a series of robberies. Another player, a senior former co-captain, is serving an indefinite suspension after he was arrested for attacking his girlfriend.
On July 26, Flood emailed the professor offering to let the student complete extra work to achieve a sufficient grade "during football hours," according to the report, which quoted the email as saying it was sent from the coach’s personal account to the professor’s private account "to ensure there will be no public vetting of the correspondence."
There followed a series of emails and, on Aug. 5, an in-person meeting in Princeton, N.J., at which, according to the professor, Flood deliberately wore no Rutgers gear in an attempt to avoid being identified in public.
From Flood's email to the professor:
I am forwarding a letter I wanted [the Student] to compose to you. I am sending it from my personal email to your personal email to ensure there will be no public vetting of the correspondence.Wow.
Rutgers' first Big Ten matchup is Saturday--against Penn State, another scandal-plagued school.
The Big Ten school I graduated from, Illinois, wasted little time in parting with its head coach, Tim Beckman, one week before the start of Fighting Illini season as it became clear that he abused players.
Coach Flood should use a defense surrounded by the use of Hillary Rodham Clinton's use of a private email server during her term as President Obama's secretary of state.
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