DRC: UNT vetted Wallis, but advocate Brenda Tracy says he never should have been hired

[Brett Vito]

 

[El Paso Eagle]

59 minutes ago, PlummMeanGreen said:

Pray for the accused & the accuser(s). Both families worlds are literally turned upside down &  inside out.  I don’t envy either.
 We have no idea of all the facts.  Coach Littrell may not have either.  Our country has got to get out of all this witch-hunting modus operendi —both sides of the aisle.  
 

GMG! 

Not sure if the downvotes are due to you actually wanting to wait before convicting or you dared to use the word pray. Some on here seem to get offended by both; unless it's aimed towards the people they support. Didn't seem that long ago we could agree to disagree without destroying those who didn't share the same views.c

[greenminer]

Is it safe to say Tracy doesn't want anyone to ever hire Wallis again?

[UNT18Grad]

I'm all for people getting the rightful punishment they deserve and hope he does too should he deserve it, but this headline is misleading and is attempting to imply there was some specific reason we should not have hired him that we should have/did uncover in our hiring process.

I'm not trying to circumvent DRC's paywall, but basically this woman is an assault survivor who shared her story with the Baylor football program and afterwards Wallis confronted her saying Baylor was a clean program and he wasn't sure why she was there, that's all.  I don't agree with him confronting her at all, and we know what we know about Baylor at this point, but for her to say he doesn't deserve another coaching job ever simply because of that encounter alone seems to be a bit petty in my mind.

Edited September 10, 2020 by UNT18Grad

[El Paso Eagle]

5 minutes ago, greenminer said:

Is it safe to say Tracy doesn't want anyone to ever hire Wallis again?

Not able to see the article. What is her reasoning?

 

[UNT18Grad]

In a separate thought, the more info that comes out here it appears that rather than some kind of full on relationship or sexual encounter he is being accused of touching a student trainer on the sidelines on two occasions.  Let me be very clear, both are very bad and he should be punished accordingly if true.  However, I feel as if on the sideline mid-game, surrounded by thousands of people, likely with your wife and kids watching you in the stands would be the dumbest possible time to do such a thing without any reason behind it whatsoever.  Does that make it untrue?  Absolutely not, if anything it makes it worse if it is true. 

But let's say there's no more to the story, no texts, no backstory, just one student saying it happened and another backing her up.  If that's all there is to this I would imagine finding any kind of evidence would be nearly impossible.  So how do we move forward from that?

[peanuts104]

5 hours ago, Brett Vito said:

 

F*** off with this stupid s***. Nobody knew about the accusations when he was hired. Blaming the coaching staff for something they couldn't have known is the big dumb.

[BillySee58]

4 hours ago, UNT18Grad said:

In a separate thought, the more info that comes out here it appears that rather than some kind of full on relationship or sexual encounter he is being accused of touching a student trainer on the sidelines on two occasions.  Let me be very clear, both are very bad and he should be punished accordingly if true.  However, I feel as if on the sideline mid-game, surrounded by thousands of people, likely with your wife and kids watching you in the stands would be the dumbest possible time to do such a thing without any reason behind it whatsoever.  Does that make it untrue?  Absolutely not, if anything it makes it worse if it is true. 

But let's say there's no more to the story, no texts, no backstory, just one student saying it happened and another backing her up.  If that's all there is to this I would imagine finding any kind of evidence would be nearly impossible.  So how do we move forward from that?

Just asking a question here, but does Argyle PD arresting him indicate that they were able to find more through their investigation?

[peanuts104]

27 minutes ago, BillySee58 said:

Just asking a question here, but does Argyle PD arresting him indicate that they were able to find more through their investigation?

It absolutely does. The public does not have all of the information. **** this guy but as far as we know right now the university had no way of knowing this **** was going on.

Edit: roll your eyes more. Blaming people for **** they didn't do is wrong.

Edited September 10, 2020 by peanuts104

[97and03]

3 hours ago, BillySee58 said:

Just asking a question here, but does Argyle PD arresting him indicate that they were able to find more through their investigation?

[UNT18Grad]

8 hours ago, BillySee58 said:

Just asking a question here, but does Argyle PD arresting him indicate that they were able to find more through their investigation?

Good question, one that I didn't have the answer to so I did a little digging and the answer is no.  That doesn't mean there isn't more we don't know currently, but to simply charge and arrest him nothing more is needed other than the statement from the first victim about the groping.  She gets pretty detailed and there are multiple incidences, so it's a lot more than them just arresting him because someone said he slapped their butt.

I wasn't sure how this type of process worked or what the terminology is so I'm assuming others might be in the same boat, but basically an arrest affidavit is a sworn and signed statement by a victim explaining what happened to them which then gets submitted to a judge to decide if there is probable cause for a crime and then to issue an arrest warrant. 

In Wallis' affidavit the victim details the multiple incidences with him, but also states she and Wallis never exchanged any texts and he never attempted to try and meet her privately in any setting outside of the inappropriate touching that happened in the field house, on the practice field, or game field.  There's at least one other victim, but from a legal perspective he could have been arrested just from the first story alone.  Not defending the guy in the slightest, and as I've said if true I hope he gets punished as heavily as possible, but it seems some on here think they had to have some more evidence in order to arrest and charge him but that's not true.  The article below is where I got most of my information, and if you pause the video at the right time you can even read the affidavit yourself.

https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/crime/unt-assistant-football-coach-arrested-accused-of-improper-relationship-with-a-student/287-c0601ae7-ef39-40c7-af39-4bec44f134fb

 

 

Edited September 10, 2020 by UNT18Grad

[UNTLifer]

The accusser states that this occurred at every game.  Couldn't they pull film of the games?  I am not defending him, but I find it difficult to believe that this went on at games and nobody saw this occur.

[SteaminWillieBeamin]

30 minutes ago, UNTLifer said:

The accusser states that this occurred at every game.  Couldn't they pull film of the games?  I am not defending him, but I find it difficult to believe that this went on at games and nobody saw this occur.

Does the investigation claim no one saw it?

I imagine that the investigation included asking people other people in the AD, her friends, anyone she confided in back then, etc. There was a long 6 month delay before an arrest. 

Ask the Olympic Gymnasts about how sexual abuse from people in power and how it happens in plain sight. 

[golfingomez]

 

[UNTLifer]

3 hours ago, SteaminWillieBeamin said:

Does the investigation claim no one saw it?

I imagine that the investigation included asking people other people in the AD, her friends, anyone she confided in back then, etc. There was a long 6 month delay before an arrest. 

Ask the Olympic Gymnasts about how sexual abuse from people in power and how it happens in plain sight. 

The sexual abuse the Olympic gymnasts encountered did not happen during competition or one the sidelines in the middle of a crowded arena.

The point I was trying to make is in relation to this quote from the article:

"The victim told police it happened at “every practice and game,” on the field or in the field house, according to the affidavit.

If this were my daughter, I would probably be paying attention to what she was doing from the stands.  I just find it difficult to believe that nobody saw this and addressed it at the time it allegedly took place.  I am not taking sides here, but this doesn't add up to me, at least yet.

Edited September 10, 2020 by UNTLifer

[SteaminWillieBeamin]

1 hour ago, UNTLifer said:

The sexual abuse the Olympic gymnasts encountered did not happen during competition or one the sidelines in the middle of a crowded arena.

You're right - it happened right in front of the parents who were in the same small exam room.

https://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/readers/2018/02/08/larry-nassar-victim-mom-abuse-testimony-letter/319425002/

I suppose the even more intimate room invalidates how it can happen in plain sight -- like I originally said. 

[greeneagle1]

Did this lady tell UNT or Argyle HS about the occurrence at Baylor? Hindsight is always 20/20. You can say he shouldn't have been hired, but just because he confronted her, doesn't make him unhirable. I personally think she is trying to make a headline with that and so is Bert. 

[outoftown]

Well. Thanks to him resigning, NT will hopefully only be an unimportant and quickly forgotten side note in whatever news coverage comes on about this.

Now the legal process can play out. I hope that for all that were directly involved (both defendant and plaintifs) that this will not be too much of a media circus hijacked by people from both sides of the political isle, as i think only outside groups profit from that. How realistic that hope is seems doubtful though.

Mrs Tates argument for NT not doing the right thing by hiring Mr Wallis was primarily about his involvement in the events at Baylor. I admit this was the reason i was not a fan of this hire. I simply thought this was not a good look in the best of cases and had potential to look real bad.

That said, if the Baylor time is the only reason the university was not supposed to hire him, and Mrs Tate nor anyone else was informing folks of the upcoming argyle process or something else new, prior to the hire, then i doubt there was  a real humdinger to be found by due diligence. In that case at that time it would primarily be a question of what offenses one is willing to give people a second chance for and how long you think they need to have shown redemption before you are willing to give them another shot at the FBS level. Personally I always felt that with the Baylor thing maybe it should be longer and include FCS before NT should be the one to give such a chance and take that risk. But people can disagree on that.

 

With all that said, I think Littrell will get a bit less leeway in bringing in hires with association to past problems for the next few years.

Edited September 10, 2020 by outoftown