No surprise Colorado site of sex scandal

BOULDER, Colo. – It has been described as the “perfect storm” of scandals, a cloudy concoction of sex, drugs, alcohol, race, gender and a major administrative power failure.

Some say it could have happened anywhere, but it didn’t. This twister touched down in a posh, postcard town tucked in the Rocky Mountain foothills.

The University of Colorado hardly owns the collegiate football scandal beat.

Fourteen Ohio State players have been arrested since 2001 for charges ranging from robbery to felony drug abuse.

Miami recruited a high school player, Willie Williams, who has a rap sheet as long as a goal post.

Virginia Tech players recently were sentenced to jail time in a case involving sex with a minor.

UCLA and USC have had their share of run-ins with the law.

Yet, for many reasons, the Colorado story has resonated beyond the high plains.

Nine women have alleged they were raped by former Colorado players or recruits since 1997 – although criminal charges have not been filed.

Gary Barnett, who was reinstated as football coach last week, may not have been “vindicated,” as he said, by an independent panel report on the crisis.

However, the report concluded no one in power “knowingly sanctioned” the practice of using sex and alcohol to lure potential players.

Why here?

“My kids lived through JonBenet (Ramsey), Columbine, and now you’ve got Kobe Bryant,” said Hillary Johnson, a stay-at-home mother of two who grew up in Boulder. “Everything is a stinking scandal.”

Colorado president Elizabeth Hoffman said she feared the fight over this story had sometimes turned to “blood sport.”

She said, “This is not a soap opera or a cartoon or a caricature, these are extremely serious matters that deeply affect the people involved.”

The Boulder demographic, as noted in the report, may have added to the political powder keg. Of the 24,000 undergraduates on campus in 2003-04, only 448 were black - 40 percent [sic] of whom were on the football team.

Some say Colorado football has wrongly been singled out.

“Whatever they say happened here happens everywhere and everyone knows that,” said Colorado defensive back J.J. Billingsley, who is black. “To categorize football players at Colorado as ‘these monsters,’ it’s just crazy. I’m not that.”

The Colorado story exploded in January when Boulder District Attorney Mary Keenan’s testimony in a civil lawsuit was made public.

Keenan said she put the university “on notice” in 1998 to stop using sex and alcohol to lure recruits.

Her deposition was part of a lawsuit brought by Lisa Simpson and two other women, all of whom alleged they were raped by Colorado football recruits in 2001. They are suing the school claiming their Title IX rights have been violated. Title IX bans sex discrimination at schools that receive federal funds.

Keenan’s comments ignited a firestorm that back-drafted all the way to the governor’s office.

Another bombshell was dropped in February when Katie Hnida, a former Colorado kicker, said she had been raped by a teammate.

Trying to defuse that crisis, Barnett worsened the situation when he publicly denigrated Hnida’s playing abilities, saying in part, “Katie was not very good. She was awful.”

The next day, based partly on those comments, Hoffman placed Barnett on paid administrative leave.

The eight-member independent commission created to investigate the allegations held 15 meetings, called 56 witnesses, reviewed more than 20,000 documents, hired a private investigator and, on May 19, delivered its 51-page report to the CU Board of Regents.

The final “Independent Investigative Commission” report paints a salacious and scathing portrait of the football program dating to 1997.

It is critical of Chancellor Richard Byyny, Athletic Director Dick Tharp, Barnett and even of Hoffman.

While the commission concluded the school used sex and alcohol to lure recruits to campus, it did not recommend anyone be fired.

At the crux of the scandal is a recruiting party in December 2001, a period in which Colorado was flush with success after winning the Big 12 Conference.

Ten recruits visited the school that week, and, according to testimony, at least one of them had sex with female students at the Omni Hotel.

Two other recruits told their player hosts they did not have sex and that CU was “weak” because they hadn’t “hooked up” with any women.

The next day, Dec. 7, a party began at Simpson’s apartment with a shot-drinking contest.

The report stated the recruits engaged in “group sex” with women at the party, “although there is dispute as to whether the sex was consensual.”

One of the recruits who had complained about CU being “weak” was later accused of sexually assaulting Simpson at her apartment.

The independent commission made clear the common thread in the assault claims: the abuse of alcohol.

Boulder was a dry city from 1907 through 1967 but has made up for lost time. The commission reported there are 60 bars, nightclubs and liquor stores that sell alcohol within a one-mile radius of campus.

According to one study, nearly 63 percent of the students have been classified as “binge drinkers.” During a recent interview on the Colorado campus, Dr. Robert Maust, the school’s chairman on substance abuse, said sales of liquor licenses in Boulder were growing 4.4 times faster than the population.

Maust said the culture of drinking has to be changed on college campuses.