ST. LOUIS (AP) Two members of the University of Missouri's
governing board said Tuesday they did not order football coach Gary
Pinkel to dismiss a star running back after the player's 2010 arrest on
sexual assault charges, contradicting an account by the player's mother
in a new book that critically examines major college football.
Derrick
Washington was Missouri's leading rusher as a sophomore and junior
until he was kicked off the team days before the start of his senior
season after the accusations by a tutor. He was convicted in 2011 of
deviate sexual assault and served four months of a five-year prison
sentence. Washington completed his college football career in 2012 at
Division II Tuskegee in Alabama. After his dismissal by Pinkel,
Washington also pleaded guilty to misdemeanor domestic assault against
an ex-girlfriend but did not have to serve additional time.
Washington's
mother told the authors of "The System," a book released Tuesday, that
Pinkel wanted to use a redshirt to keep her son on the team until after
his trial but was overruled by Missouri's Board of Curators, who "called
him in and told him what they were going to do."
Board Chairman
Wayne Goode, who spent 43 years in the Missouri Legislature, and curator
David Bradley, chief executive officer of a St. Joseph-based media
company, told The Associated Press they never met with Pinkel or
discussed Washington's status on their own.
"I know of no contacts, nor can I remember any discussion along that line among curators or individually," Goode said.
"I
don't remember any meeting with Gary Pinkel or recall any conversations
about Derrick Washington," Bradley added. "That would be, in my mind,
micromanaging. Our job is to set policy."
The book by Jeff
Benedict and Armen Keteyian uses the Washington incident as the basis
for a chapter about inadequate oversight of athletics tutors, describing
a sexually charged atmosphere in Missouri's Total Person Program.
Pinkel
declined to discuss the book at his weekly meeting with reporters
Monday, but the university responded in a written statement posted
online last week after obtaining an advance copy of the book.
Missouri
said the authors did not contact school officials for comment, though
Benedict has said his emails to Pinkel and a school spokesman went
unanswered. The statement calls the example cited an isolated one that
"is not reflective of the culture of (an) academic program" that
consists of 150 tutors working with more than 500 athletes.
The
school's statement also includes a link to a voluntary April 2011 review
of Missouri's academic support program for athletes conducted by the
National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletics. The outside
review included a recommendation that Missouri add a second professional
staff member to help oversee a tutoring program where "day-to-day
supervision" was handled by a graduate student assistant. Missouri
subsequently hired another non-student for that position.
