Michigan State head football coach Mel Tucker was suspended without pay on Sunday by the school, as details emerged about investigations into sexual harassment claims against Tucker.
Brenda Tracy, a rape survivor and advocate for sexual violence prevention, filed a complaint with Michigan State’s Title IX office in December of last year. It stems from a particular incident in April of last year where Tucker masturbated while talking to Tracy on the phone. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for the first week of October.
USA Today published an investigative piece on the situation over the weekend, detailing that at one point Tucker told investigators that ESPN investigative reporter Paula Lavigne was looking into Tracy’s claims that she was gang-raped 25 years ago. Tracy and Tucker developed a relationship tied around Tracy speaking to student-athletes at the school about sexual violence and offered training seminars on campus. Lavigne, who denied Tucker’s claim about her investigating Tracy’s story, notably reported on sexual assaults within the Michigan State athletics program and Larry Nassar.
97.1 The Ticket host Rico Beard told Jeff Riger on The Daily Ticket podcast that one of the worst things Tucker could have done was invoke the name of Paula Lavigne.
“You never, ever, ever mention Paula Lavigne and Michigan State because that’s like catnip to Paula,” Beard said. “Paula, I promise you, will probably have some new report on Michigan State based off of that, and then she’s gonna go back and put the timeline in with Tom Izzo and Dantonio and all the stuff that went on – Larry Nassar – guess what? If you’re a Michigan State fan, and you just got over the Larry Nassr stuff, it’s about to come back up again because he threw her name in there.”
“It’s not gonna go well for you, and this is why Michigan State had to suspend him,” Beard added.
Both Riger and Beard mentioned the fact that the absolute last thing Tucker needed was something like this to happen. Beard echoed Riger who said Tucker helped his naysayers by doing something abhorrently stupid.
“You handed them the keys to put you away forever,” Beard said.
