It is hard to say it any better than SBN colleague Black Heart Gold Pants does, but everyone connected with college football -- no, every human being -- should repeat it until it happens: Kirk Ferentz, University of Iowa President Sally Mason and everyone else connected to this unseemly, vile incident should immediately resign.
Like BHGP, C&F doesn't intend to insult the sensibilities of unsuspecting readers with the details in the article -- it's in the link. But suffice it to say that it is awful: A student athlete is "allegedly" sexually assaulted and atheltics department officials withhold important information about the "alleged" crime from her while imploring her to follow a nonexistent "informal" policy for dealing with the incident. An informal policy, it should be noted, that in no way would require the university to ever publicly own up to anything and might not even require punishment for the "alleged" perpetrators.
C&F hastens to add that he is usually not in the business of telling other schools' officials when they should and should not resign. But BHGP is good company to have in this case, and C&F feels compelled to say something. C&F would hope that if -- Heaven forbid -- anything like this happened at South Carolina, he would have support in the rabble-rousing that would follow. (And believe C&F; rabble-rousing would follow.)
This is about more than the University of Iowa. This is about the priorities of athletics departments and institutions of higher education across the country.
This is about our society.
If any college or university in America sends the message that football is more important than a young woman's broken life, that bad PR is worse than doing the wrong thing and that silent agony is a victim's best course, it's not just a black mark on the Hawkeyes.
It's a black mark on us all.