NEW YORK (AP) - Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades says the school will continue to be transparent with the NCAA as the association investigates whether any of its rules were broken while former coach Art Briles was running the football program.
Rhoades was at Madison Square Garden on Friday night for Baylor’s NCAA Tournament men’s basketball game against South Carolina.
Rhoades was hired after Briles was fired following an investigation that found widespread mishandling of sexual assault allegations by the school, including some made against members of the football team.
“I don’t know that I have any deeper concern,” Rhoades said about the NCAA’s involvement with the scandal. “I think we’ve been extremely cooperative with the NCAA. We’re still in that timeframe of learning more. We’ve been extremely transparent and we continue to be. It’ll lead us where it leads us.”
The scandal at Baylor also led to the departure of university president Kenneth Starr and athletic director Ian McCaw.
Baylor is still facing multiple lawsuits and investigations by law enforcement. In legal filings, there have been claims of possible academic misconduct by the football program and players being shielded from discipline. Those relatively recent developments could be NCAA violations, and they came to light after Rhoades was hired last July.
“I think I was told what people knew of at the time,” Rhoades said. “Certainly there have been some things that have happened since then people didn’t know. I knew that coming in that there was going to be bumps in the road. And there’s going to be more bumps in the road as we move on down. It’s about how we handle them, and if we handle them the right way every time, things will take care of themselves.”
Rhoades said the success of the Bears’ basketball teams - both the men and women have reached the Sweet 16 - have been welcome positive news about Baylor athletics.
“It’s been great medicine for everybody. Like college sports always does, it rallies people together and I really think this has really helped to rally the Baylor community and Baylor Nation back together,” Rhoades said.
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