Not defending Tucker and not accepting Tracy’s version either. Need more info.
His MSU tenure is over, but I’m not convinced this is a ‘for cause’ firing. If it were that obvious, and if the contract says they can, why didn’t they fire him already? Ask yourselves that. The contract doesn’t stipulate granting a hearing.
I’ll tell you why…because they need to figure out potentially paying out the contract. Paying out the $80M balance from an idiotic contract in the first place is far more an embarrassment to the entire university than Tucker’s behavior is.
The DFP story shows he brought Tracy back for the Spring game.. then calls her four time trying to get her to meet him alone without her assistant that weekend. Which she declines. Then less than 2 weeks later comes to the specific phone call in question.
Yes, that the call lasted 36 minutes is odd.. but what if the disgusting part happened in the last 2 minutes and resulted in a hang-up?
If this story has said she called him every time, not the other way around... and teh calls had nothing to do with organizing photo ops or visits or speeches.. that would be one thing. But, come on, 4 calls in one weekend from a head football coach when he should be busy with family and recruiting and the business of running a Big Ten football operation?
He brought her to town for a ridiculous reason.. because we all need a sexual violence speaker to be the focal point of a Spring football game.. he knew she'd be in a hotel and he tried to get her to agree to meet him privately.. 4 times!
C'mon. That's stalking. He might call it salesmanship.. not taking no for an answer.. persistence! But the goal was sex.. obviously.. and its creepy as hell. It is harassment.
I was willing to entertain the idea of him being coerced... but all it likely was was her being nice to book speaker engagements. It's her business. And his is supposed to be football.