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Sports journalist Jemele Hill lets us see her squirm as she shares frank talk about MSU basketball coach Tom Izzo, who she met as an MSU junior in the late 1990s and who became a friend.
"This may be the most difficult column I've ever written," she posts at The Undefeated, part of ESPN Internet Ventures. The 1997 alumna tells why:
I am struggling to reconcile a person I've known for 20 years with the person I see now — a man awkwardly deflecting questions about how he handled sexual assault and violence allegations against some of his former players. . . .
I don't know what to think of him anymore.
Jemele Hill and Tom Izzo: "He's on the verge of losing all of the public's trust."
Hill, who joined ESPN in 2006 and rose to co-host of the flagship "SportsCenter" show, covered MSU basketball and football for the Detroit Free Press from 1999-2005. The sportswriter and coach got along so well that they shared beers and she has been an occasional house guest.
I remember when he adopted his son. I’ve known his daughter since she was a kindergartner.
He and his wife, Lupe, have invited me to stay with them whenever I return to East Lansing. After I was suspended [by ESPN in 2008], Izzo was one of the first people to reach out with words of encouragement and support.
She reconnected with the man she calls "the face of Michigan State" this week after he sidestepped questions from an ESPN investigative reporter and from CBS about assistant coach Travis Walton's 2010 departure. Walton had been charged with punching a female student in the face and later was accused in a gang rape. Izzo also declined to discuss former players Adreian Payne and Keith Appling, accused of rape in a dorm room.
I exchanged text messages with Izzo on Monday because I was selfishly hoping for something — anything — that might give me more clarity.
Izzo declined to elaborate beyond what he’d already said to [ESPN's Tisha] Thompson. He texted: "I’ve always appreciated our friendship, yet I understand you have a job to do. Someday I will be able to talk. I am sorry."
I believe real friendship is the ability to tell a friend something she doesn't necessarily want to hear. And Izzo's response just isn't good enough.
Maybe it's asking too much at this point. I’m sure both Izzo and football coach Mark Dantonio, who has also been accused of burying sexual assault allegations against his players, have likely been warned about what they can and cannot say so as not to expose themselves or Michigan State to further legal action.
But it's impossible not to be disappointed by Izzo's non-response to these charges, not just because of our personal relationship but because he is the face of Michigan State University. Even more so now that the university president and athletic director each stepped down within days of each other last wee
Hill's highly personal commentary at ESPN's The Undefeated sports and culture site.
Hill, 42, gives her campus friend "the benefit of the doubt" for now -- and describes why she feels frank answers are essential for his reputation:
Izzo owes the public a better explanation — a full explanation. . . . It's important we hear his perspective and soon. This is a coach who preached to his players that they should own their mistakes, and now may be time for Izzo to own his.
Yes, as Izzo said, the focus should be on supporting and helping to heal the survivors, but the best way he can do that is by holding himself publicly accountable. The survivors need to know that he is more than just another prominent figure trying to save his butt.
If Izzo never comes clean with what he knows or doesn't know, people will simply make up their own minds about his culpability. . . . Surely he understands that given the nature of the accusations, he's on the verge of losing all of the public's trust. . . .
I've known him long enough that I’m willing to extend him the benefit of the doubt on how he's addressed these allegations so far, in hopes that he'll be able to sufficiently explain his actions.
