GREEN & WHITE FOOTBALL

MSU's Dantonio: 'This is serious. Extremely serious.'

Chris Solari

Detroit Free Press

Head coach Mark Dantonio speaks to the media during a press conference on Tuesday at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing. Dantonio addressed the sexual assault allegations against members of the football team.

EAST LANSING – Mark Dantonio didn’t want to talk about football. To him, it seemed “trivial” to talk about sports.

Tuesday morning’s news conference was about the 11th-year Michigan State coach taking a “step out into the light” with allegations into his program.

Dantonio answered questions for nearly 27 minutes about his program and the ongoing investigation into allegations of sexual assault involving three unnamed players and the suspension of a staff member. He would not comment on specifics of the three active investigations or Curtis Blackwell’s situation.

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“I’m doing everything I can to completely operate with everybody involved in this, and so that’s my focus,” Dantonio said inside the Spartan Stadium media center. “Our focus is to get our guys together, coach them on the field, get them ready to play, but not make it too public where it sends a message that this isn’t that serious.

“This is serious. Extremely serious. … I hope everybody understands that it is not business as usual.”

It was the first time Dantonio has spoken to the media since national signing day on Feb. 1. He revealed that other players also are suspended beyond those three involved in the alleged sexual assault, but he would not specify who, how many or for what. Dantonio also said a third player – cornerback Drake Martinez – has left the program, joining linebacker Jon Reschke and offensive lineman Thiyo Lukusa.

But he deflected most questions about his program on the field.

“I think to stand up here and talk about who is going to be our quarterback right now is trivial compared to what we’re dealing with. That’s why I did not want to do that,” Dantonio said. “I did not want to come up here and talk about spring practice or talk about depth charts or those types of things because I thought it was unfair to the investigation as a whole, so we refrained from doing that.”

Michigan State’s spring game is at 3 p.m. Saturday at Spartan Stadium and open to the public. There also will be a kids clinic that begins at 11 a.m. outside the Duffy Daugherty Football Building.

Dantonio said those were part of the reasons why he spoke for the first time to the media since spring practice began Feb. 25. He also said he did not speak due to the ongoing investigations.

“Obviously I had anticipated that this would be sort of finalized to some extent just in terms of the investigative process,” he said. “But that’s not been the case.”

Three players are being investigated for an alleged sexual assault that took place at the on-campus University Village apartments in the early-morning hours of Jan. 16 and reported to MSU Police on Jan. 17. Dantonio would not said when the football players were suspended but said it was the decision of both the university and his program to remove them from football-related activities and removed from university housing during. They remain students.

Erin Roberts, the executive director of Lansing-based Ending Violent Encounters (EVE), said she is not surprised about the timeline of the case.

“I think, as coach Dantonio reflected, that the integrity of the investigation and the ability to do a full investigation is primary at this point,” Roberts said. “Locally in previous accounts, we didn’t have a whole lot of success in getting prosecutions done for sexual assaults in general. We’re seeing that tide change now. And so once the investigation is done and the prosecutor is able to weigh the investigative information, we’ll see what happens next.

“We’re really all kind of waiting to see how this proceeds. … It’s always a slow process for victims to receive justice served.”

Blackwell, the program’s director of college advancement and performance, was suspended Feb. 9. That was exactly a week after the university hired an external Title IX investigator. It also was eight days after the last time Dantonio (and Blackwell) spoke publicly, on Feb. 1 during national signing day.

There are currently three investigations into that situation.

The first is the criminal case, which has been under review by Ingham County Prosecutor Carol Siemon since March 14. There is no timeline for when or if charges will be filed. MSU Police are seeking four warrants in the case.

The second is the Title IX investigation, which is being undertaken externally by Rebecca Veidlinger. The Ann Arbor attorney who previously worked in MSU’s Title IX office signed a contract with the university on Feb. 2. That is focused on potential violations of the university’s relationship violence and sexual misconduct policy.

The third is an external probe into the football program, which is being conducted by attorneys with Jones Day law firm. That began Feb. 10, the day after the announcement of the suspensions of the three players and staff member.

Dantonio did not issue a statement on the incident until he released one through the university Feb. 28.

“Well, there are no easy challenges. There wasn’t an easy challenge when I came here. To me, this is part of the deal,” Dantonio said Tuesday. “This is part of the reason that I was chosen as a head football coach here. It was to lead in the difficult times, not to put a hat on and walk around the Rose Bowl and say, ‘Hey, we won the Rose Bowl.’ That’s the time.

“You find out who you are, you need to find yourself when things fall around you. You’re defined as a leader. So this and next season, there are going to be challenging moments, but that’s why I was hired. Those are my intentions.”

Contact Chris Solari:csolari@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@chrissolari. Download our Spartans Xtra app for free onAppleandAndroiddevices!