Yesterday, UCLA's Athletic Director had an opportunity to speak about the seriousness of sexual assault on college campuses. Unfortunately, he didn't seem to know that the nature of the transfer issue at Baylor is sexual assault.
UCLA A.D. Dan Guerrero made an appearance on The Petros and Money Show yesterday, with Don MacLean sitting in for Petros, on AM 570. He was asked to come on the show to celebrate yesterday’s groundbreaking ceremony. About two-thirds of the way into the interview, Money asks Dan about the sick situation going on at Baylor and, in that context, how involved Dan is with transfers.The crux of Dan's reply was that his philosophy is "if a person doesn’t want to be here - why do we want them here."
I have to say, I don’t know why I was shocked, but as you can hear, the entire answer was about student-athletes transferring out! I kept waiting for him to say something relevant to the Baylor situation, about student-athletes transferring in, but that didn’t happen. Well, not until MacLean talked about conferences starting to ban players coming into their conferences if there are "serious misconduct issues". Money presses Dan, prefacing his question with "I would love to get a little more focus, if you don’t mind" on the sexual assault issue which is "driving the conduct policies".
Did Dan not understand the question? Does he have no idea what is happening at Baylor? Does this lack of knowledge, if that is what it is, help explain his apparent ignorance about Mr. Alford’s background? Is it a lack of concern that better explains both? Or is it simply a prioritizing issue? After all, there are expectations to be managed.
Listening to this interview was one of those moments when a nervous smile appears to mask the tragic nature of the situation. So, to cope, I pulled over and emailed by frontpage brothers and sister. I just needed to share the moment.
On another topic, there will be "mitigation techniques" to make sure practices cannot be viewed from the hotel.
Go Bruins!