Source: Mike Mulholland / Getty
Two years ago, Michigan State University’s head football coach Mel Tucker, one of the most prominent and highest-paid college football coaches in the nation, joined forces with an activist to educate and raise awareness about sexual violence in the sports world. But according to that activist, who is also a survivor of sexual violence, Turner revealed himself to be part of the very problem he preached against.
Brenda Tracy, a victim’s advocate whose bio states that, in 1998, she was gang raped by college football players, has accused Tucker of turning his partnership with her into a nightmare that caused her to relive the worst thing that ever happened to her.
From USA Today:
Over eight months, they developed a professional relationship centered on her advocacy work. Tucker invited Tracy to campus three times – twice to speak to his players and staff and once to be recognized as an honorary captain at the team’s spring football game.
But their relationship was upended during a phone call on April 28, 2022, Tracy says in a complaint she filed with the university’s Title IX office in December that remains under investigation.
According to her complaint, Tracy sat frozen for several minutes while Tucker made sexual comments about her and masturbated. His violation, she said, reopened 25-year-old wounds from her rape by four men – two Oregon State University football players, a junior college player and a high school recruit.
“The idea that someone could know me and say they understand my trauma but then re-inflict that trauma on me is so disgusting to me, it’s hard for me to even wrap my mind around it,” Tracy told USA Today. “It’s like he sought me out just to betray me.”
Tucker denies that he subjected Tracy to his sexual advances against her will and he claimed to the Title IX investigator that the two were engaging in consensual “phone sex.”
“Ms. Tracy’s distortion of our mutually consensual and intimate relationship into allegations of sexual exploitation has really affected me,” Tucker wrote in a statement in March. “I am not proud of my judgment and I am having difficulty forgiving myself for getting into this situation, but I did not engage in misconduct by any definition.”
So, according to Tucker, using one’s position as a prominent sports figure to help fight sexual violence in sports and engaging in lude, salacious activity with the rape survivor he teamed up with to do so does not constitute “misconduct by any definition,” as long as, in his mind, it was consensual. Got it!
The Title IX attorney hired by MSU to investigate the allegations completed her investigation in July. A formal hearing to determine whether Tucker violated the school’s policy banning sexual harassment and exploitation is scheduled for Oct. 5 and 6. If it is determined that he did violate school policy, and more importantly, Tracy’s trust and sense of safety, Tucker stands to lose a lot more than his employment and reputation.
More from USA Today:
Tracy says Tucker is following through on a threat to ruin her career and reputation by painting her as a woman who mixes professional and personal relationships and files false reports. She fears he will undo her legacy.
Tucker, who signed one of the most lucrative contracts in college sports history two years ago, could lose out on the roughly $80 million he is owed if Michigan State fires him for cause, which would be a stunning fall from the elite ranks of college coaches.
Meanwhile, MSU announced that Tucker has been suspended without pay pending the results of the investigation.
“This step, suspending Mel Tucker without pay, is … necessary and appropriate for today’s circumstances,” Interim President Teresa Woodruff said during a press conference Sunday. “These actions are not taken lightly.”
