Final week, ESPN reported that now former Stanford coach Troy Taylor bullied and belittled feminine athletic staffers on the faculty, tried to have an NCAA compliance official eliminated after she warned him of violations and made inappropriate feedback to a girl about her look throughout two investigations into alleged conduct throughout his two-year tenure.
On the time the story was printed, Stanford normal supervisor and former star quarterback Andrew Luck declined a request for remark. In that story, nonetheless, a supply with direct data advised ESPN, “Luck met with the group in Taylor’s presence on Thursday, and that Luck doubled down on standing by his coach.”
Now right here we’re, 5 days later, and Luck has fired Taylor with a press release that learn, partly, “After continued consideration it’s evident to me that our program wants a reset. In session with our college management I not imagine that Coach Taylor is the suitable coach to guide our soccer program.”
Collectively, this begs a query: What modified in a number of quick days?
Andrew Luck makes determination to fireplace Stanford coach Troy Taylor after stories Taylor mistreated feminine staffers
Shehan Jeyarajah
Studying between the traces, it is attainable that directors above Luck — maybe outgoing athletic director Bernard Muir or new faculty president Jon Levin — stepped in. It is not very best to conduct a training search in March, and it looks as if Stanford was planning to run it again with Taylor in 2025 if none of this had come to gentle.
Luck was conscious of the ticking timebomb inside his soccer program.
In keeping with ESPN, Taylor signed a letter on Feb. 14, 2024 acknowledging that he might be fired if his conduct continued following the 2023 investigation. The second investigation into Taylor’s conduct concluded in the summertime of 2024, and Luck was employed in late November.
The Athletic reported that Taylor was disciplined and that Luck was briefed on your complete state of affairs; Luck had additionally been on the committee that employed Taylor in 2022. However reasonably than selecting to announce that Taylor was disciplined and they might be soldiering on with him on the helm within the wake of this saga coming to gentle … they fired him.
Stanford sees itself as an entire athletic division, one which caters to all sports activities on a good enjoying subject versus the soccer factories that dominate the game. Soccer operates with “mental brutality,” but it surely does in order a part of a broader athletic program that prides itself on being the nation’s chief in all-time NCAA group championships.
Luck placing his identify to the assertion ushers in a brand new paradigm in Stanford soccer — and faculty soccer as a complete. It is one the place the final supervisor can, and did, fireplace the coach. It means the function he was employed to do has rather more government operate than merely stocking the roster. It additionally ought to carry with it extra scrutiny about Luck’s function in Stanford soccer’s future. He’s the one answerable for this system, and due to that, he must also be on the hook for explaining how this system can be cleaned up regardless of who the subsequent everlasting coach is to make the surroundings extra welcoming to ladies whether or not they’re employed by the college or not.
In spite of everything, Stanford’s administration has identified for fairly some time that the tradition wanted to alter.
