Couch: If needed change at MSU includes Dantonio, Izzo, so be it – but let's slow down
Graham Couch
EAST LANSING – Mark Dantonio was defiant as he spoke Friday night. Tom Izzo careful with his words.
Both survived perhaps the darkest week in Michigan State history.
It’ll take more than that. MSU and its athletic program — including its two flagship revenue sports — will be under the critical eye of several investigative bodies for some time. The public scrutiny and media pressure is likely to stick around, too.
No one is sacred anymore. Nor should they be. The Larry Nassar scandal has exposed a culture at MSU that needs work. That needs change.
That change began with MSU President Lou Anna Simon stepping down on Wednesday night. Athletic Director Mark Hollis followed on Friday morning, announcing his retirement just ahead of an ESPN Outside the Lines report critical of how MSU and its athletic department — including Hollis, Dantonio and Izzo — have handled sexual assault allegations over the years.
If Dantonio and Izzo are also part of what needs to change, so be it. But be damn well sure that’s the case before they’re steamrolled out of town. We’re not there yet.
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The ongoing ESPN story on MSU — on several platforms — speaks to a larger cultural issue on campus. As do parts of the Nassar case. They are intertwined in that regard. But they are two separate stories.
One is of unimaginable scope, backed by 16 months of reporting, with a conviction and overwhelming evidence of negligence. The other is a troubling report involving several incidents with MSU’s football and men’s basketball players — some already known — all of which were dealt with by the university, police and the court system or are in that process. Whether they were dealt with appropriately is the question, one that needs to be revisited. If there were serious missteps or any sort of cover-up, the culpability of Dantonio and Izzo should be examined.
When ESPN puts its weight behind something, you’re going to feel it. It has here — dedicating hours of television airtime and prime internet real estate to its investigation of MSU. MSU didn’t help itself by digging in and fighting so hard against ESPN’s request for documents, as if it had guilt to hide.
This is also a test for the MSU community, which was rightfully up in arms over the university leadership’s callous response to Nassar’s victims, still even as they began sharing their heartbreaking stories in court and in front of the world. You cannot selectively hold MSU accountable. If the culture is going to change, there can be no exceptions for beloved and successful coaches of the programs folks actually care about. Doing the right thing is sometimes inconvenient. Sometimes costly. Sometimes it hurts.
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It’s easier for most people to get rid of a school president, the board of trustees or an athletic director than it is a coach whose program so often has your heart in its hand. Hypocrisy, though, must be kept in check.
It’s just as important to resist becoming a reasonless mob that lets momentum carry the day. We’re prone to that more than ever these days. This is too important. There’s no harm in a pause while we figure out what’s what. Let the attorney general’s office, the NCAA and state legislature do their investigations. Let media outlets continue to probe. Given the microscope, what needs to come out, will.
More than 150 courageous women and girls, victims and survivors, made that happen.
It took seven days of their faces, names and stories on a live feed in court for most of the world to take notice. Even ESPN, which is behaving as if it’s unearthed the Pentagon Papers, was slow on MSU with Nassar — the findings of its own 14-month investigation revealed essentially only what had already been reported over the previous 14 months.
MORE: 16 months of LSJ Nassar coverage, September 2016 to today
This has become a fast-moving story now, though. All of it, together. ESPN’s report Friday — while some of it old news — felt like a bombshell that required action. Perhaps, at some point, the contents of it will lead to action.
If that includes Dantonio or Izzo, both made it clear Friday night, they don’t see it that way.
“I’m here tonight to say any accusations of my handling of any complaints of sexual assault individually are completely false,” Dantonio said before MSU’s basketball game, as firmly and angrily as I’ve heard him speak. “Every incident reported in that article was documented either by police or the Michigan State Title IX office. I’ve always worked with the proper authorities when dealing with cases of sexual assault.”
“I’m not going anywhere, in my mind,” Izzo said more softly a couple hours later, post-game. “I’m definitely not retiring. There are a lot of things that happened today that are part of life. I’m going to worry about my team. I’m going to worry about the survivors.”
Each struck the right tone for them. Dantonio’s forcefulness made it clear where he stands. Izzo, who’d bungled his comments about Nassar and Simon a week earlier, needed not to let his emotions get the best of him. He held back. Lived to fight another day. He’ll have to do that for a while, which isn’t his strength.
Where this is going, no one can be sure.
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.