The Oregonian has the story on Altman’s promotion yesterday of Tony Stubblefield here. The 2017 CBS Sports report on Stubblefield’s role recruiting Dominic Artis, Damyean Dotson and Brandon Austin is below the break. (Apparently Altman is crying because he lost a game, not over the alleged sexual assaults.)
… When asked whether he had any regrets about the way he handled the extremely serious and disturbing allegations against former Ducks Dominic Artis, Damyean Dotson and Brandon Austin, Altman said he had none. Had he not held this regrettable public stance at every turn since, his words would be surprising. Instead, they were generically company-line. Who knew a man who speaks so softly could be so stubborn? When you take into account the life the alleged victim of sexual assault has likely lived since then, the comments are insensitive and, for her and her family, obviously offensive.
Artis, Dotson and Austin were never charged with any crime regarding what was alleged on the night of March 8, 2014. As what is often the case in sexual assault allegations, a lack of physical evidence prevented any further action from law enforcement. The alleged victim had this to say in a letter she submitted to the university in 2014. Artis and Dotson filed a motion to sue Oregon in 2016. Both sides should be taken into account.
The absolute basics of a messy case are this: Altman knew his players were involved in disturbing activity in the middle of the season, opted to not punish them publicly (the police advised this, for the record), then allowed them to play in the all-important NCAA Tournament. Only after the season was over did Altman come forward with punishments (before the school banned all three).
Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens said in 2014: “It was very clear to us that those were individuals we didn’t want representing our organization.”
Artis was taken in at UTEP; Dotson went to Houston. Austin, who had a previous sexual assault allegation against him while at Providence, never played again in Division I.
“Our guys did a great job, our staff did a great job,” Altman said Thursday. “We had great support from the university. So it went fairly smooth.”
Altman kept it short. Assistant coach Tony Stubblefield did not.
“Coach Altman is a very resilient man,” Stubblefield said. “The conversations he had I wasn’t totally privy to, that he had with the administrators, what those conversations were. Obviously it was hard on him as well.”
Stubblefield offered much more reflection, opinion and information.
“It was a very stressful situation because I was very involved in recruiting those kids,” Stubblefield said inside Oregon’s open locker room. “For me, it was very personal. This was more than basketball. This was way bigger than basketball.”
Stubblefield said he still talks with Artis, Austin and Dotson. He’s exchanged text messages with them this week.
“Those kids are like sons to me,” Stubblefield said. “It was a very hard and dark time for me to go through that with them young men.”
At the time, Altman said he did not know the specific allegations. As a coach, he didn’t pursue to discover what his players might have done. Since then, Oregon has remained in the clear. We can give credit to Altman and his assistants for that, but it doesn’t mean that we should put aside what allegedly happened three years ago. By doing that, what does it allow for? Perhaps another incident. Sexual assault remains a plague on college campuses.
“We all weren’t privy to say anything [back then],” Stubblefield said. “I wouldn’t say a lot has changed since what happened three years ago. Obviously we hit a bump in the road when that happened. It was an unfortunate situation, but we knew we had to dig, we had to come back to work and we had to grind it out. We’ve had some guys that have stuck with us. Jordan Bell, Dillon Brooks, Tyler Dorsey, them guys came in and gave us an opportunity, and without those guys we wouldn’t be where we are right now.”
The staff encountered negative recruiting and underwent some damage control. In bypassing that, they were able to land the likes of Brooks, Bell and Dorsey. …
Rather than uselessly continuing to grind your axe against the sports teams, why don’t you rail on how embarrassingly pathetic the 100% canned Knight Campus grand opening festivities were last night?
I don’t get a lot of invites to party with Guldberg and his gang. So please tell us what went down – is that cross laminated timber coffee bar worth all the taxpayer money Gov. Brown spent on it?
All you need to do is watch the “festivities” here:
https://accelerate.uoregon.edu/grand
100% CANNED – even the “breakout” sessions further down on the page were canned. Nothing live, no live speeches from Bob or Mike. There were no additional festivities beyond these bland, canned, limpid youtube-style videos – VERY disappointing! Whatever PR flak(s) dreamed this up should be fired!
Yeah, that looks like way less fun than the Big White Tent party. While UO is laying off food-service employees, Kyle Henley’s subcontractors are making bank with this crap. But the skybridge is the part I don’t understand. (OK, I don’t understand neuroengineering either, but I’m all for it anyway.) But that bridge is hideously ill-proportioned. It makes The Phildo look natural. I mean I get it that oil pipeline steel is dirt cheap these days, thanks to all those CO2 divester students, but there’s a reason they bury that stuff in the ground. I can’t wait til our students add some free-speech banners to cover up those girders.
@XDH . I agree, the Knight Campus opening was really terrible. Vapid and content free. I’m glad to know that we have “permission to dream.” There’s great science in the new faculties’ fields, there’s a great building with a lot of thought put into it, but no, we don’t get any of that, just clichés and attempts at artsy video. (Guldberg and others sitting outside in the dark) It’s embarrassing.
you know by now its all style (bad) over substance around here