Michigan State football head coach Mel Tucker is placed on UNPAID LEAVE amid sexual harassment probe
Michigan State football coach Mel Tucker has been placed on unpaid leave by the university amid an investigation into sexual harassment allegations made by a prominent activist and rape survivor. Secondary coach Harlon Barnett will take over on an interim basis and retired head football coach Mark Dantonio will have a role with the team, the school announced Sunday.
Athletic Director Alan Haller held a brief press conference on Sunday to announce the decision, while stressing he was limited in what he could say due to the ongoing investigation. As he explained Sunday, Haller learned of the probe in late December and an outside investigator submitted a report in July, recommending a formal hearing, which will take place the week of October 5.
Action Network’s Brett McMurphy previously reported that Tucker had been dismissed before Haller revealed the suspension on Sunday. McMurphy also reported that school officials will wait until Title IX investigation is completed to finalize the decision to fire Tucker, which would allow MSU to avoid paying Tucker’s $70million buyout.
Tucker was on the sidelines for Saturday’s win over Richmond despite the ongoing probe, which was initiated following a complaint by Brenda Tracy.
USA Today reports that Tracy alleges Tucker sent her gifts, made unwanted sexual remarks and masturbated without her consent during a phone call. Tracy visited the university on two occasions in 2021 and 2022 to speak to the football team about preventing sexual misconduct, the report claims, and was even made an honorary captain of the team.
Michigan State coach Mel Tucker was on the sidelines on Saturday for his team’s victory
Brady Tracy, a rape survivor and advocate for victims of sexual violence, has made the claims
She alleges that after her second visit, coach Tucker ‘called her multiple times and asked to repeatedly meet him alone’, before noting that he could ‘slip into her hotel through a back door’ so nobody would see him.
Tucker, meanwhile, claims in a letter to investigators that the pair’s relationship is ‘mutually consensual and intimate’ and he acknowledges masturbating on the call – but insists it was consensual phone sex.
In the letter, as shared by USA Today, 51-year-old Tucker wrote: ‘Ms. Tracy’s distortion of our mutually consensual and intimate relationship into allegations of sexual exploitation has really affected me.
‘I am not proud of my judgment and I am having difficulty forgiving myself for getting into this situation, but I did not engage in misconduct by any definition.’
Tucker currently has a base salary of $5.9m a year and signed a huge contract in 2021 which includes an additional $3.1m a year for media appearances, taking his average annual earnings to around the $9m mark.
Tracy, meanwhile, spoke to USA Today about her allegations, and claimed that his actions reopened wounds from when she was raped 25 years earlier by four men – two Oregon State University football players, a junior college player and a high school recruit.
The coach is under investigation by the school for alleged sexual harassment, say reports
Michigan State are 2-0 for the season, but Tucker’s future in charge of the team is now unclear
‘The idea that someone could know me and say they understand my trauma but then re-inflict that trauma on me is so disgusting to me, it’s hard for me to even wrap my mind around it,’ she said. ‘It’s like he sought me out just to betray me.’
It is claimed that a hearing to decide whether Tucker violated the University’s sexual harassment policy is scheduled for October 5 and 6.
It is currently unclear whether Tucker will be on the sidelines in the meantime, after the news of the investigation surfaced in the media.
The team is 2-0 after thrashing Richmond 45-14 on Saturday.
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