The Hamilton Tiger-Cats announced the hiring of former Baylor head coach Art Briles on Monday—a controversial decision that was reversed hours later.
During an interview on The Jeff Blair show Tuesday morning, Tiger-Cats CEO Scott Mitchell talked about the team’s decision to hire Briles and said the team’s management underestimated the severe backlash that was directed at them.
“We felt he deserved a second opportunity, and I think clearly that’s unacceptable to society today and that’s unacceptable to the media that have taken on the issue,” he said. “I think anything related to domestic violence is, for good reason, so toxic that regardless of what limited or extreme level someone may have had in it, it’s just totally unacceptable to the public that somebody is going to be allowed to work based on that experience right now.”
In May 2016, Briles was fired from Baylor following an independent investigation into the mishandling of numerous rape allegations—including several against Baylor football players—in what was one of the largest sexual assault scandals in U.S. college history.
“There’s no question — we underestimated the tsunami of negativity that was going to happen and we made a mistake in trying to contemplate a second chance versus the impact of what had happened at Baylor, and trying to give a guy that opportunity,” Mitchell said. “I think as the day went on, it just became very clear that despite the fact that I think most people in life deserve a second chance, I think it just became very clear that this was just not acceptable to people.”
Hamilton’s hiring of Briles was met with widespread criticism on social media and conventional media throughout North America, with many—including some sponsors—pressing the team to rethink its decision.
Monday’s announcement, which did not include any mentions of the allegations against Briles during his time at Baylor, came off especially tone deaf as the team was set to host a women’s football clinic later on Monday.
Mitchell talked about the impact social media had on the reversal during Tuesday’s interview.
“I think we’ve all made mistakes. I think in this day and age, the reality is that we’ve created a phenomenon with social media and people have the ability to chime in and when it gets to a point of negativity where … you can’t defend a mistake like that, where the general public has said it’s not acceptable,” Mitchell said. “You’ve got to acknowledge it, and I think Randy Ambrosie, our new commissioner, showed great leadership to it and I think we had to acknowledge the mistake that this just wasn’t going to work. There’s no moral high ground on an issue like this, second chance or otherwise.”
“At the end of the day, you’ve got to acknowledge a mistake and clearly bringing Coach Briles in was going to be a mistake and we accepted that and made the decision,” said Mitchell.
Also on Tuesday morning, Tiger-Cats owner Bob Young released the following statement on behalf of the team:
[blockquote]We made a large and serious mistake. We want to apologize to our fans, corporate partners and the Canadian Football League. It has been a difficult season and we are searching for answers. This is clearly not one of them. We have listened, we are reviewing our decision-making processes and we will learn. We will go on. We want to thank our fans, partners and the CFL for their help and support.[cite]Hamilton Tiger-Cats owner Bob Young[/cite][/blockquote]
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