MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota President Eric Kaler stepped behind the podium and began to speak, a crisis averted after seven Golden Gophers football players announced that the team would not boycott the upcoming Holiday Bowl against Washington State because 10 of their teammates had been suspended in a sexual assault case.
“I listened to their concerns,” said Kaler, who had negotiated with the players. “I was able to explain our point of view around the actions that we took. It was a very frank and candid conversation. I’m glad it led to this resolution.”
Listening from another room in the team’s football building, players fumed. They thought Kaler was taking credit for solving an impasse even though he left the talks the previous night without a deal, a group of four that included players and other people involved in the talks told The Associated Press. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because of a team-wide agreement not to speak publicly about the case to keep a focus on Tuesday night’s bowl game in San Diego.
The interviews revealed a lingering divide between an administration trying to actively investigate allegations from a woman who says she was pressured into sex with multiple football players and a team that was concerned about the fairness of the process.
Tensions ran so high that the players’ decision to participate in the bowl nearly collapsed a day after it was made. Players, angered by Kaler’s remarks, called an emergency meeting the next day as they returned to practice after some pushed to reinstate the boycott.
“Things were still very raw for them,” Regent Darrin Rosha, who was asked to attend the meeting, said. “For some, the allegations and due process issues had somewhat taken a backseat to the way they felt team members who were not involved had been treated by the university.”
Kaler and athletic director Mark Coyle declined to be interviewed about the boycott talks, instead releasing a joint statement pledging to work “to address issues and concerns that have risen to the surface from across our University community, to make a difference and improve things moving forward.” Federal laws written to protect the privacy of students involved in investigations like this one restrict their ability to comment directly on many of the details in the case – with the media or the team.
