Elite college football teams care more about winning than what is morally right.
It's a melancholy fact that is often swept under the rug by sports fans, who look at their favorite teams, programs and players through rose-colored glasses. The inherent desire of college football fans is for their team to win a national championship at any cost, but when does that price become so immorally high that it's not worth paying?
Florida State University, however, is more than willing to pay the literal and figurative price for eternal "glory." This begins with its handling of the Jameis Winston rape case. For all intents and purposes, the woman involved did not consent to have sex with Winston. In everywhere but for some reason a court of law, he is by definition a rapist. That is what Winston's accuser believes, and if you do not believe her, the following timeline outlined in more detail by Yahoo! Sports should help you out:
- Dec. 7, 2012, 2 a.m.: Woman calls her friend and claims she had been raped in an apartment by someone she does not know.
- Dec. 7, 2012, 3:22 a.m.: Female friend of woman calls FSU police reporting sexual battery, the woman still does not know who her attacker was, but describes him as a "black male with a short afro that looked like it needed to be cut."
- Dec. 7, 2012, 4:10 a.m.: Tallahassee police conduct interview with woman and collect articles of clothing for evidence. Soon after she traveled to the hospital and was administered a rape kit.
- Dec. 8, 2012, 3:45 p.m.: Police conduct another interview with the woman, this time recorded on video. She also describes the events in a handwritten account:
"Next thing I know I was in the back of a taxi with a random guy that I have never met. There was another person in the taxi. We went to an apartment, I don’t know where it was. I kept telling him to stop, but he took all my clothes off. He started having sex with me and then his roommate came in and told him to stop. He moved us to the bathroom ‘because the door locked’ and I’m not 100 percent sure how everything in there happened."
- Jan. 10, 2013: Woman walks into FSU class and recognizes the face of her attacker. She waits for names to be called and hears his: Jameis Winston. She proceeds to call Tallahassee police and report this fact.
- Jan. 11, 2013: The woman's aunt, an attorney, is contacted by police and expresses concerns that due to Winston being "a big name on campus," her niece is afraid of moving forward in pursuing charges.
- Dec. 5, 2013: ESPN reports that Jameis Winston's DNA matched the semen sample found in the woman's underwear.
Winston's accuser is not making this up, despite what many who side with Winston choose to believe. She and her aunt were worried that Winston's notoriety would make the situation more difficult, and it undoubtedly did. Much like the Ray Rice situation in professional football, an incompetent police department in Tallahassee mishandled the investigation and was likely coerced by FSU football into making sure there wasn't enough evidence to charge Winston.
We don't know for sure if the University itself was involved in the decision not to pursue charges with Winston, but one thing is for sure: victim-blaming and disgusting accusations of extortion are commonplace coming from the misinformed many who choose to tweet #FreeJameis. Winston's lack of maturity, questionable morals and pure stupidity all do not help his case, but the sick desire of the FSU faithful to win a national championship sure does. So does the desire of his coaches to achieve the same goal.
Winston isn't even the only football player at FSU who has had his legal troubles tossed aside in the name of pursuing a championship. Seminoles starting running back Karlos Williams is under investigation for domestic violence, a brutal act that Williams is likely to have committed based on the following post, allegedly from his girlfriend's Facebook page and since-deleted:
You might ask: How did Williams's victim act in the face of the most powerful football program in the country?
The answer: Exactly the same as Winston's. Fearful.
Williams's girlfriend felt the pressure of big football. She did not contact police herself and will not cooperate with the investigation. Her attorney requested that the investigation be dropped, and Williams continues to play every Saturday just as Winston did during his sexual assault investigation.
Linebackers may leave a few marks on Williams when he runs with the football, but those bruises will never compare with the physically evident and emotionally hidden scars Williams's girlfriend will possess for the rest of her life. She knows she must either stay with a woman-beater, or risk becoming not only his victim, but a social pariah and the woman responsible for costing FSU's precious football team a shot at another national championship. Considering its 8-0 record and top-2 national ranking, FSU is certainly in the driver's seat to repeat.
FSU head coach Jimbo Fisher got defensive when addressing how the Winston investigation affects his glorious reputation. "Why is my reputation taking a hit?" he said. "For backing a kid who has done nothing wrong? I don’t want to get into this. The questions weren’t supposed to be asked today. I’m done. I’m done.”
Fisher is a domestic violence and sexual assault enabler. He, along with his football program, interfered with the sanctity of investigations that require an immense amount of courage from the victim to stand up and fight for themselves in a court of law. Both the Florida State football program and its fans' desire to win another national title bullied two victims away from pursuing justice.
Mr. Fisher, the only thing you should be "done" with is coaching college football. Your national championships are not worth silencing women who are victims of the misogynistic monsters you call student athletes.
Reach the columnist at RClarke6@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @RClarkeASU
Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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