Oregon State President F. King Alexander resigned under pressure today. He's been under fire about his role in the Les Miles sexual misconduct scandal at LSU in 2013. Alexander was LSU president from 2013-2019 before moving to OSU.

The OSU Board of Trustees said:

"When the Board of Trustees adjourned last week, we believed it was possible for President Alexander to repair the broken confidence and trust in his ability to lead OSU," board chair Rani Borkar said in a statement. "After listening to and hearing important input from diverse members of our community and reflecting on our own values and experiences, we now know that rebuilding trust is no longer possible."

So far, prominent officials at Kansas and Oregon State have lost their jobs over what happened at LSU eight years ago.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/st...miles-saga

(03-23-2021 03:16 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Oregon State President, F. King Alexander, resigned under pressure today. He's been under fire about his role in the Les Miles sexual misconduct scandal at LSU in 2013. Alexander was LSU president from 2013-2019 before moving to OSU.

The OSU Board of Trustees said:

"When the Board of Trustees adjourned last week, we believed it was possible for President Alexander to repair the broken confidence and trust in his ability to lead OSU," board chair Rani Borkar said in a statement. "After listening to and hearing important input from diverse members of our community and reflecting on our own values and experiences, we now know that rebuilding trust is no longer possible."

So far, prominent officials at Kansas and Oregon State have lost their jobs over what happened at LSU eight years ago.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/st...miles-saga

That sends a message to university presidents. Seems like Joe Alleva was prescient in his note. You can try to hide behind legal advice, but you also need to understand the implications of disclosure. Impressive how much progress has been made by the Me Too movement in the past decade.

Bye, only 4,300 hundred or so to go.

It's still crazy that a 2013 incident at a blueblood big enough to get

(1) the AD recommending firing Miles at the time
(2) the HC fired at another school 8 years later and
(3) the President fired at another school 8 years later

was successfully kept secret for 8 years with no one knowing despite it being at a program with a 24/7 spotlight.

(03-23-2021 04:48 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  It's still crazy that a 2013 incident at a blueblood big enough to get

(1) the AD recommending firing Miles at the time
(2) the HC fired at another school 8 years later and
(3) the President fired at another school 8 years later

was successfully kept secret for 8 years with no one knowing despite it being at a program with a 24/7 spotlight.

why is it crazy? a "blue blood" (I despise that term BTW) was found to have been running an ENTIRE ACADEMIC DEPARTMENT that was fake for the sole purpose of keeping basketball players (and others subsequently) eligible. They paid no consequence for it either.

Now, let Kent State send a recruit a text on the wrong day, and they'll get the death penalty.

(03-23-2021 05:20 PM)TheOriginalBigApp Wrote:  

(03-23-2021 04:48 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  It's still crazy that a 2013 incident at a blueblood big enough to get

(1) the AD recommending firing Miles at the time
(2) the HC fired at another school 8 years later and
(3) the President fired at another school 8 years later

was successfully kept secret for 8 years with no one knowing despite it being at a program with a 24/7 spotlight.

why is it crazy? a "blue blood" (I despise that term BTW) was found to have been running an ENTIRE ACADEMIC DEPARTMENT that was fake for the sole purpose of keeping basketball players (and others subsequently) eligible. They paid no consequence for it either.

Now, let Kent State send a recruit a text on the wrong day, and they'll get the death penalty.

The point wasn’t about the scandal. That’s a different conversation.

The point was that LSU was a program where everyone knew everything, particularly in that era where the school recently won a national title and played in another NCG. Les Miles was one of the biggest names in the sport (turned down Michigan), was nearly fired, yet both the scandal and his near-firing were successfully kept secret with no one knowing for 8 years.

If it had gotten out in 2013, it would’ve been a massive story that shook the CFB universe. Today, it got the Kansas HC and Oregon St President fired 8 years after the fact but the impact on the sport is low because Miles is long gone from LSU.

(03-23-2021 04:48 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  It's still crazy that a 2013 incident at a blueblood big enough to get

(1) the AD recommending firing Miles at the time
(2) the HC fired at another school 8 years later and
(3) the President fired at another school 8 years later

was successfully kept secret for 8 years with no one knowing despite it being at a program with a 24/7 spotlight.

Yes, and that is *especially* stunning in Baton Rouge, because seemingly every thing that happens in the LSU athletic department is reported on. As you say, a 24/7 spotlight. The local paper covers LSU athletics the way the New York Post covers the Giants and Yankees - comprehensively with a capital C. And the city is loaded with sports bloggers and radio hosts with deep LSU connections who blabber and report on LSU constantly, daily. There is at least one local LSU forum that gets as many posts as this forum does. Typically, if a football player fails a home economics exam, someone will know and report on it. So it is astonishing, almost unbelievable, that the local media had no inkling of the Miles situation in 2013 and that it was kept secret for 8 years.

If you live in Louisiana, it almost makes you question your understanding of the universe.

I lived in Baton Rouge for 36 years. My law firm represented the Tiger Athletic Foundation.

LSU has always been shady. Its history is replete with a Heisman Trophy winner convicted of counterfeiting, a $6,000 payoff from Dr. Redfield Bryan to Lester Earl, the whole dirty Dale Brown era, the Curley Hallman scandal involving cheerleaders, secretaries and others, the recent Will Wade FBI tape scandal, the alleged $180,000 payoff to a recent offensive lineman recruit, the recent sexual assault and sexual harassment issues, and now the Les Miles scandal, etc...etc...

(There are so many that I likely have forgotten some)

So, it has had lots of experience in handling scandals over the years.

LSU had local criminal attorney Nathan Fisher on speed dial. Much of his criminal law practice involved representing LSU football players and getting their cases quashed and kept out of the press.

He was kept very busy over the years, from 1975 until his 2015 death. I would see him in his bow tie in the 19th Judicial District Court quite often, keeping LSU players out of jail.

LSU used to be pretty good at keeping things quiet in the past. You would have thought with the sports press, blogs, and radio hosts (as Quo mentions), that this would have come out.

(Was there a nod and wink with the local press in 2013? It happens. Or, were LSU administrators just that good at the cover up? )

That the Les Miles issue was covered up does not really surprise me as much as it does Quo, all things considered.

(03-23-2021 06:10 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(03-23-2021 05:20 PM)TheOriginalBigApp Wrote:  

(03-23-2021 04:48 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  It's still crazy that a 2013 incident at a blueblood big enough to get

(1) the AD recommending firing Miles at the time
(2) the HC fired at another school 8 years later and
(3) the President fired at another school 8 years later

was successfully kept secret for 8 years with no one knowing despite it being at a program with a 24/7 spotlight.

why is it crazy? a "blue blood" (I despise that term BTW) was found to have been running an ENTIRE ACADEMIC DEPARTMENT that was fake for the sole purpose of keeping basketball players (and others subsequently) eligible. They paid no consequence for it either.

Now, let Kent State send a recruit a text on the wrong day, and they'll get the death penalty.

The point wasn’t about the scandal. That’s a different conversation.

The point was that LSU was a program where everyone knew everything, particularly in that era where the school recently won a national title and played in another NCG. Les Miles was one of the biggest names in the sport (turned down Michigan), was nearly fired, yet both the scandal and his near-firing were successfully kept secret with no one knowing for 8 years.

If it had gotten out in 2013, it would’ve been a massive story that shook the CFB universe. Today, it got the Kansas HC and Oregon St President fired 8 years after the fact but the impact on the sport is low because Miles is long gone from LSU.

The truth will out! But the intriguing questions are who leaked it and why? The cover up is an essential detail to be sure, but why after 8 years did it come out this past year? There was a motive to cover it up. But there was also a motive to disclose, and both could be sinister. Honest disclosure doesn't take 8 years, it is immediate when a party discovers the truth. Disclosure well after the event when efforts at coverup had been made is not a disclosure with integrity, but rather a disclosure which had other motives than justice.

(03-24-2021 06:29 AM)TerryD Wrote:  I lived in Baton Rouge for 36 years. My law firm represented the Tiger Athletic Foundation.

LSU has always been shady. Its history is replete with a Heisman Trophy winner convicted of counterfeiting, a $6,000 payoff from Dr. Redfield Bryan to Lester Earl, the whole dirty Dale Brown era, the Curley Hallman scandal involving cheerleaders, secretaries and others, the recent Will Wade FBI tape scandal, the alleged $180,000 payoff to a recent offensive lineman recruit, the recent sexual assault and sexual harassment issues, and now the Les Miles scandal, etc...etc...

(There are so many that I likely have forgotten some)

So, it has had lots of experience in handling scandals over the years.

LSU had local criminal attorney Nathan Fisher on speed dial. Much of his criminal law practice involved representing LSU football players and getting their cases quashed and kept out of the press.

He was kept very busy over the years, from 1975 until his 2015 death. I would see him in his bow tie in the 19th Judicial District Court quite often, keeping LSU players out of jail.

LSU used to be pretty good at keeping things quiet in the past. You would have thought with the sports press, blogs, and radio hosts (as Quo mentions), that this would have come out.

(Was there a nod and wink with the local press in 2013? It happens. Or, were LSU administrators just that good at the cover up? )

That the Les Miles issue was covered up does not really surprise me as much as it does Quo, all things considered.

I have friends living in BR. They say there are a lot of things you can learn on the street about goings on at LSU that you never read in the papers.
It's interesting, they say, that all of these folks are losing their jobs (Oregon State, Kansas) but no one at LSU gets fired.

I doubt this is unique for LSU/Baton Rouge.