Former Baylor coach Art Briles and his assistant coaches actively intervened in the discipline of football players, worked with law enforcement to keep their cases under wraps and tried to arrange legal representation for their players, according to a series of emails and text messages released by the university in a legal filing Thursday.
The document filed in a Dallas County court was in response to a libel lawsuit that former football director of operations Colin Shillinglaw had filed Tuesday against the school and several of its senior leadership.
The university’s response alleges Briles and his coaching staff created a disciplinary “black hole” into “which reports of misconduct such as drug use, physical assault, domestic violence, brandishing of guns, indecent exposure and academic fraud disappeared.”
Shillinglaw and former assistant athletic director Tom Hill were fired in May, after lawyers with Philadelphia law firm Pepper Hamilton, hired by Baylor to assess the school’s handling of sexual violence complaints, found systematic failures in the way Baylor responded to allegations of sexual assault and other violence by students, including football players. The investigation led to the firing of Briles, the demotion and eventual departure of university president and chancellor Ken Starr, and the sanctioning and resignation of athletic director Ian McCaw.
Ever since the university issued a summary of Pepper Hamilton’s findings in May, there has been an outcry – particularly vocal among supporters of Briles and the football program — to release the specific findings from the investigation, with the belief by some that those details would exonerate the coaches.
On Wednesday, Briles dropped his defamation suit against three regents and Baylor vice president Reagan Ramsower, less than a week after another woman filed a Title IX lawsuit against the school, in which her attorneys allege there were 52 sexual assaults committed by “not less” than 31 players from 2011-14.
Among the information released in Thursday’s legal filing is a description of what happened when the former girlfriend of Baylor defensive end Shawn Oakman reported that Oakman physically abused her. She made a report to Waco police, and brought a copy of it to Shillinglaw and “two other people she believed to be assistant football coaches.” The response to the lawsuit states, “There was no evidence that Shillinglaw or anyone in the football program shared the report with Baylor officials outside of the Athletics Department. Worse, when Pepper Hamilton questioned Shillinglaw about the incident and showed him evidence of his involvement, Shillinglaw insisted he did not recall anything about it.”
The woman, a Baylor student, declined to pursue the criminal case and left the state. She returned to Baylor in the summer and fall sessions of 2013 but withdrew after more encounters with Oakman. In January 2015, the woman and her mom met with a learning accommodation specialist at Baylor who, upon hearing her story, immediately contacted judicial affairs, the Title IX office, student life and the office of general counsel. It states the specialist wrote, “I haven’t seen a student as scared and upset as she was in a long time. She mentioned that she lives in constant fear, 24 hours a day she is scared that [Oakman] or his friends will come beat her up. The mom also talked about Baylor protecting the guy because he is a Baylor football player and that he had an assault record before he was at Baylor.”
The response to the lawsuit notes several other incidents that football coaches knew about but were never reported to judicial affairs. On Feb. 11, 2013, when a coach notified Briles that a female student-athlete complained that a football player had brandished a gun at her, it states that Briles responded, “what a fool — she reporting to authorities.” It states the assistant responded, “She’s acting traumatized … Trying to talk to her calm now … Doesn’t seem to want to report though.”
In one of the messages, dated April 8, 2011, the response notes that Briles sent a text message to an assistant coach, referencing a freshman defensive tackle who was cited for illegal alcohol consumption, “Hopefully he’s under radar enough they won’t recognize name – did he get ticket from Baylor police or Waco? … Just trying to keep him away from our judicial affairs folks. … “
In reference to a player who was arrested for assault and threatening to kill a non-athlete, a football operations staff member “tried to talk the victim out of pressing criminal charges,” the document states. The correspondence from Sept. 20, 2013, quotes Briles in a text to McCaw, “Just talked to [the player] – he said Waco PD was there – said they were going to keep it quiet – Wasn’t a set up deal … I’ll get shill (Shillinglaw) to ck on Sibley.” (Sibley was in reference to Waco attorney Jonathan Sibley.) It states McCaw responded, “That would be great if they kept it quiet.”
Briles again referenced having Shillinglaw contact Sibley on behalf of an athlete in an Aug. 15, 2015, exchange regarding a player who was arrested for possession of marijuana. Briles texts an unidentified assistant coach and asks, “Do we know who complained?” It states the assistant coach responded that it was the superintendent at the player’s apartment complex, to which Briles replied, “We need to know who (sic) supervisor is and get him to alert us first.”
Some of the other exchanges were:
A September 2013 text from Shillinglaw to Briles about a player who allegedly exposed himself to a masseuse, who had a lawyer and was asking the athletic department to handle the situation with discipline and counseling. Briles responded, “What kind of discipline …She a stripper?” and after Shillinglaw responded that the player was at a salon and spa for the message, Briles texts, “Not quite as bad.”
In October 2013, Shillinglaw and Briles correspond about a player who was suspended for repeated drug violations. “Bottom line, he has to meet with (Vice President for Student Life Kevin) Jackson tomorrow morning. If Jackson does not reinstate President will,” Shillinglaw wrote.
A May 2014 exchange shows Briles and an assistant coach arranging for a player who was caught selling drugs to transfer to another school, noting the offense was never reported to judicial affairs. The assistant coach is quoted as texting, “Him just hanging around Waco scares me. [Another school] will take him. Knows baggage.
The university’s response also claims Briles personally appealed to Starr on behalf of former Bears defensive lineman Tevin Elliott, when he was charged with a second count of plagiarism, which made him ineligible for the 2011 season. After Elliott missed an April 2011 appeal deadline, according to the response, Briles “personally took up Elliott’s cause more than two months later” in June.
“The coach notified President Starr in an email that Elliott wanted to appeal the suspension,” the response says. “The unusual request by Coach Briles triggered concern among top Baylor administrators, who complained to President Starr and among themselves that overturning Elliott’s suspension after the appeal deadline would send a message that athletes were above the rules.”
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