Gibbons news

Is going to make us look bad, what the he!!.

I was just about to post about this. This is going to be a huge huge black eye for the program and the University as a whole if it's true that this was covered up. I know there is a ton of information that will be coming out in the future but if Hoke knew about this and tried to cover it up (not saying he did at all) I think Hoke should be gone along with Brandon.

This is really going to hurt signing day...and beyond...IMO.

http://www.maizenbluenation.com/2014/01/brendan-gibbons-expelled-as-more.html

Go Blue!!

Fuck him, as far as I'm concerned. Assholes like that get no sympathy from me.

MichiganFootball13 wrote:

I was just about to post about this.  This is going to be a huge huge black eye for the program and the University as a whole if it's true that this was covered up.  I know there is a ton of information that will be coming out in the future but if Hoke knew about this and tried to cover it up (not saying he did at all) I think Hoke should be gone along with Brandon.

If either/both of them covered this up in any way, they need to be gone tonight! I can see some NCAA penalties coming against the University. Not quite at the PSU level, but pretty harsh.

Go Blue!!

I wonder if this is connected with BOLEACH7's sudden reappearance????




(jk!)

dwoody wrote:

I wonder if this is connected with BOLEACH7's sudden reappearance????




(jk!)

LOL +5

Go Blue!!

Guess I don't understand how Hoke covered this up like everyone is saying here when the assault was Nov 22 2009 and Hoke was hired in January 2011? Seems like RR should of been the first one to know about this?

BillMFan wrote:

Guess I don't understand how Hoke covered this up like everyone is saying here when the assault was Nov 22 2009 and Hoke was hired in January 2011? Seems like RR should of been the first one to know about this?

That is true, but as the article states:

"Then in December, Hoke addressed Gibbons' bowl game availability by telling the media, ""He's a little iffy. He's kicking a little bit. But I don't want to over-kick him. I've never been a kicker, so I can't imagine that (injury) problem. So, he's a little iffy." It is not known if Gibbons was actually injured or not. Given what we know now, it would seem likely that he was not."

Based on the date of the letter to Gibbons, there is a good possibility that he wasn't even in school, let alone practicing with the team when he made that statement.

I really don't want to believe that he covered this up as I see him as an honorable man, but something is rotten in Denmark here....IMO.

Go Blue!!

He can't talk about shit like this because of privacy rules. He did not "cover-up" anything for all you people looking for a reason to hate on Hoke.

GOBLUEJOE66 wrote:

MichiganFootball13 wrote:

I was just about to post about this.  This is going to be a huge huge black eye for the program and the University as a whole if it's true that this was covered up.  I know there is a ton of information that will be coming out in the future but if Hoke knew about this and tried to cover it up (not saying he did at all) I think Hoke should be gone along with Brandon.

If either/both of them covered this up in any way, they need to be gone tonight!  I can see some NCAA penalties coming against the University.  Not quite at the PSU level, but pretty harsh.  

Go Blue!!    

BTW - I didn't say he did cover it up. I said if, as did 13.

Go Blue!!

dwoody wrote:

He can't talk about shit like this because of privacy rules. He did not "cover-up" anything for all you people looking for a reason to hate on Hoke.

You have a point, and I repeat....I said IF. So, my bad if that gave you the impression that I am a Hoke hater.

Go Blue!!

[quote="GOBLUEJOE66"]

BillMFan wrote:

"Then in December, Hoke addressed Gibbons' bowl game availability by telling the media, ""He's a little iffy. He's kicking a little bit. But I don't want to over-kick him. I've never been a kicker, so I can't imagine that (injury) problem. So, he's a little iffy."  It is not known if Gibbons was actually injured or not. Given what we know now, it would seem likely that he was not."  

Based on the date of the letter to Gibbons, there is a good possibility that he wasn't even in school, let alone practicing with the team when he made that statement.  

I really don't want to believe that he covered this up as I see him as an honorable man, but something is rotten in Denmark here....IMO.

Go Blue!!    

Based upon your quote there was nothing "covered up". It's not like Hoke used him AFTER this point. If Hoke used him AFTER this point then there is an issue.

dwoody wrote:

He can't talk about shit like this because of privacy rules. He did not "cover-up" anything for all you people looking for a reason to hate on Hoke.

I would have preferred a "no comment" to a lie.

You might be right, but this is territory to tread very carefully. A no win situation. I bet if he could have, BH would have hung him out to dry.

So this is how I understand it. Please correct me if I'm wrong in any way.


The university has recently (Sept 2013) changed or updated the standard for sexual misconduct to have lower standards of evidence. That change had a hand in Gibbons' case, or rather Gibbons' case is why they changed the standards.

The change then prompted them to review past cases at which time they reviewed the Gibbons case. I believe I am correct to say that the change states that they must review past cases.

IIRC correctly the police did investigate this case back in 2009 and claim they couldn't find significant evidence to file a charge.

So now, 4 years later and after Gibbons' has fully exhausted his eligibility the new lower standards allow the university to take action and expel him from the university.

The timeline here seems either extremely coincidental, timely, convenient and beneficial to the university's policies and football program or this is no coincidence.  

Good luck trying to make that case Hoke and Brandon.

And BTW, if Hoke and Brandon did know of Gibbons' guilt (because you have to believe that they were at the very least aware of the initial accusation and investigation) and yet they couldn't do anything about it because of privacy or protection laws and university policies in place then Hoke and Brandon are truly the two most unlucky SOBs on the face of the planet right now.

I also would like to know if RR played a role in this in any way. I suspect that information will all come out in due time.

    

Holy F*ckballs batman... Allegedly/apparently Taylor is directly involved.

http://www.washtenawwatchdogs.com/4/post/2013/08/the-cover-up-of-the-arrest-of-university-of-michigan-football-player-brendan-gibbons-for-rape.html

I'll say what I said months ago when this first surfaced-Why cover up for a freshmen kicker? This wasn't a star Heisman caliber RB. It wasn't even a star kicker. He was an unknown at the time. Furthermore, he broke the law. Why isn't he in jail? If they have all this evidence why is he on the street?

Something is not adding up.

MgoBlue wrote:

I'll say what I said months ago when this first surfaced-Why cover up for a freshmen kicker?  This wasn't a star Heisman caliber RB.  It wasn't even a star kicker.  He was an unknown at the time.  Furthermore, he broke the law. Why isn't he in jail?  If they have all this evidence why is he on the street?

Something is not adding up.

Yep, but regardless of if he was the star of the team or not you are right, this isn't passing the smell test at this point. It's early though so I'll reserve judgement.

Some important info from mgoblog about how the OSCR works. The last paragraph is troubling. Someone has some explaining to do:

Having worked at the Office of Student Conflict Resolution (the "disciplinary" office that administered the expulsion proceedings against Gibbons) for two years in undergrad, I thought maybe I could offer some insight / clear up some confusion about the OSCR process in this thread.

OSCR is not, in any appreciable sense, an investigatory body. It is a passive office that acts only after receiving a complaint from some member of the University community. While any individual student, faculty, or staff member can file a complaint, the most common OSCR complainants by far are Residence Education (Housing) and DPS. In order to pursue a complaint with OSCR, the Complainant has to provide all the necessary evidentiary backing; again, OSCR does not investigate events on its own.

The process for initiating and pursuing a complaint with OSCR goes as follows:

An OSCR staff member conducts an intake meeting with the Complainant to discuss the nature of his/her/its complaint and inform the Complainant of the various resolution pathways available (in addition to formal arbitration, OSCR offers a number of alternative dispute resolution pathways that do not result in disciplinary action).
An OSCR staff member will then conduct an intake meeting with the Respondent to notify him of the complaint and inform him of his rights/options in the process.
At that point, the Respondent can either accept responsibility for the complaint or indicate that he's willing to proceed to a formal arbitration.
Assuming that the Complainant is also interested in pursuing a formal arbitration, OSCR will either appoint a trained member of the University staff to serve as the formal arbiter, or it will select a panel of student arbiters.
After hearing from both the Complainant and the Respondent, the arbiter or the student panel will reach a finding of "responsible" or "not responsible," and will then proceed to make a sanction recommendation.
Any recommendations for expulsion have to be approved by a member of the University administration. When I was there, I believe this was the responsibility of the VP for Student Affairs, E. Royster Harper.
As you can see, this is a multi-step process that requires several meetings and often many different witnesses, advisors, and arbiters. With that said, it is emphatically NOT a three- or four-year process. Given that all of the investigatory work is already completed before a complaint is filed, the formal arbitration process does not take very long at all. In my time at OSCR, I can't remember a single arbitration - including those involving sexual assault allegations - lasting more than a single semester, from initial complaint to final sanction.

http://mgoblog.com

Just to clear up a few things that I know.

The reason Gibbons wasn't prosecuted was because she did not elect to press charges. That is a fact, I read the police report. It was truly a he said/she said with Gibbons claiming it was consensual. I can only assume that Rich Rod believed Gibbons because he wasn't prosecuted.

Apparently after the fact, Taylor Lewan said some nasty things to the girl. He was 18 at the time and thought he was defending a wrongfully accused teammate. Still not good though. Apparently, someone  from the university talked to him and it ceased immediately.

FWIW, mgoblog says the OSCR policy changed in 2011. So I'm not sure why this took so long to happen. It could be because there was a story published about the alleged rape in the summer of 2013. Just speculating here.

As for Hoke, I'm not sure what people expected him to do. This happened in November 2009 and he became coach in January 2011. I'm sure at some point he heard about this--the summer of 2013 at the latest. What is he expected to do then? Assume that it was handled correctly by the previous regime or re-open his own investigation? The latter seems a little far fetched.

I don't know why it took this long for the university to act. My best guess is that the article this summer kicked off something new. Gibbons was held out of the OSU game and the bowl game. We know for sure that Hoke new Gibbons was done at Michigan before the bowl game. We don't know why he was held out of the OSU game--true injury or the allegations.

Hoke may have handled this badly if he was still saying that it was injury issues when he knew Gibbons was done (probably should have just said no comment, or maybe he really was injured too?), but I just don't see where the coverup angle comes from. What was there for him to coverup? It happened more than a year before he got there. I think the worst thing he is guilty of is assuming the previous regime handled it correctly.

PS - this is probably going to be a mess. Stony and Bill from 97.1 were talking about it this morning. I thought Stony was recklessly throwing around the coverup word. It was obvious from his comments that at most he had briefly scanned one article about this case.

Sparties want Michigan to get the same penalty PSU got.

At least the loudmouths on the radio and the ones around here.

Anything less and we'll hear about it for 20 years.

joe wrote:

Sparties want Michigan to get the same penalty PSU got.

At least the loudmouths on the radio and the ones around here.

Anything less and we'll hear about it for 20 years.

Well, Payne and Appling were accused of rape when they were freshman. Similar situation, they said it was consensual, the girl said it wasn't. Police chose not to prosecute. They never had any punishment at all. Don't know if they were telling the truth, just like I don't know if Gibbons was telling the truth.

Oh, they HAD to be lying!

joe wrote:

Sparties want Michigan to get the same penalty PSU got.

At least the loudmouths on the radio and the ones around here.

Anything less and we'll hear about it for 20 years.

my early opinion is that this has nothing to do with the staff in place (I can't speak for the RR regime at this point), rather there was a terrible university policy in place (that has since been revised )that leaves us where we are today.

IMO it seems that the accuser being unwilling to move forward with the police coupled with OSCR's policies/guidelines seemed to have allow Gibbons to remain a student athlete.

If I were to believe that that there was a "cover up" it would only be because Hoke told the media on several occasions that Gibbons was out due to "family issues" and not a violation of team or university rules. But to me that's not a cover up, it's poor choice of words.

At this point it doesn't seem to be on the level of the PSU debacle because it sounds like a process was followed and the case was considered closed. At PSU, many university authorities and powers-that-be knew of what was going on and did nothing.

That said, if the VP for Student Affairs at the time, E. Royster Harper had sufficient evidence to recommend an expulsion but did not kick Gibbons out, then we have a HUGE problem.

my only point on the situation is that if Hoke was indeed aware , he just should have said it was a private matter and could not be discussed , if indeed there was no injury or family matter for the absence for the O$U and bowl games .... this is where he will get all the questions on ...that being said to seriously think that sanctions are in order are ludicrous .... another case of the sparty and bucknut fans wanting to think that Michigan is on their level of ethics

BOLEACH7 wrote:

my only point on the situation is that if Hoke was indeed aware , he just should have said it was a private matter and could not be discussed , if indeed there was no injury or family matter for the absence for the O$U and bowl games .... this is where he will get all the questions on ...that being said to seriously think that sanctions are in order are ludicrous .... another case of the sparty and bucknut fans wanting to think that Michigan is on their level of ethics

But, if Hoke says "Private Matter" or "No Comment" the press would have just kept coming harder at him, which would have/could have created a distraction for the team. I think just giving a quick "injury" or "family issue" response was the best way to say "He isn't here and we are not talking about him". And the media didn't press the issue.

I agree the press would have hounded him .... but now he will probably get it even more ..... sad situation all around when stuff like this happens ....definitely think it is now a distraction that will have to be dealt with by Brandon

Someone on the mgoblog message board created a timeline about this whole situation that is pretty interesting. One interesting thing was that OSCR produced a document saying that there was a preponderance of evidence that Gibbons had committed sexual assault. The document was produced on a Wednesday and Gibbons played Saturday against Iowa, his last gagme. It does not say when Gibbons received the letter or obviously when Hoke learned about it. Also, Gibbons still had the opportunity to meet with OSCR and presumably plead his case, which happened in December. I guess if there was anything I would hold against Hoke, it would be if he knew about these findings before the Iowa game.