Yikes
"University of Iowa officials, including athletic director Gary Barta and football coach Kirk Ferentz, encouraged the victim of an alleged sexual assault involving Hawkeye football players to keep the matter in-house, the mother of the alleged victim says."
How is this clown still coaching? The athletic dept. is crooked too.
" Within 36 hours of the assault the victim reported the incident to the highest levels of the
Iowa Athletic department."
WTF is her mom thinking? Report it to the police. Why the Iowa Athletic Dept.?
CHICAGO — Defiant Kirk Ferentz rejects the notion that he or anyone else connected with the Iowa football program attempted to “brush aside” allegations made by the mother of a victim in a sexual assault case involving two Iowa football players.
“You can question my ability to coach, you can question my decisions during a game, you can question a lot of things, but to question my character, I take exception to that,” Ferentz said Thursday at the Big Ten’s annual football kickoff.
The 10th-year Iowa coach spoke publicly for the first time since the Iowa Board of Regents voted to reopen an investigation into the university’s handling of the matter.
Regents took that action Tuesday after learning two letters sent by the mother of the female involved in the alleged incident had not been forwarded to the Regents as part of their earlier investigation.
The first of two letters sent by the parent was detailed in a copyright story by the Iowa City Press-Citizen last weekend, alleging athletic department members wanted to keep the matter in house to avoid publicity.
“Anybody involved in a coverup would have to be morally bankrupt,” Ferentz said.
Two former Iowa football players, Abe Satterfield and Cedric Everson, are accused of sexually assaulting a female Iowa athlete in a university dormitory in October, 2007.
Everson has been charged with second-degree sexual assault, while Satterfield was charged with second- and third-degree sexual assault.
The two players were withheld from team activities immediately once Ferentz learned of accusations and were later suspended from the team. Both transferred from Iowa at the end of the fall semester.
Ferentz said as football coach, he does not possess the power to revoke an athlete’s scholarship, remove an athlete from school or even remove an athlete from a dormitory.
“I acted on the things a football coach can act on,” Ferentz said. “There was not much more any of us could do or could have done from a coaching standpoint. We took action based on the information available to us.“
He confirmed Thursday that he and director of athletics Gary Barta were among those attending a meeting with the victim within 36 hours after the alleged incident occurred.
“I was uncomfortable being there, but at the time we walked away feeling it was a very productive meeting,” Ferentz said.
Although university policy does not require his attendance, Ferentz said he did so at the insistence of the involved female.
“My actions, at every step of the way, have been done in the interest of concern for the young woman and her family,” Ferentz said. “I think the proper steps were followed every step of the way.”
The father of two college-age daughters, Ferentz said he is sensitive to the type of situation he found himself talking about Thursday.
“This is the stickiest type of situation that a coach deals with, the most unsavory and most distasteful,” he said. “This is first time I have been involved with one and I hope it is the last.”
Ferentz isn’t surprised the general conduct of the
Hawkeyes team is under a microscope.
“We’ve opened the door for the type of attention we’ve received,” Ferentz said. “Some of it has been fair, some of it hasn’t, but you can expect negative reporting when the reports are being written about negative behavior.“