Mel Tucker has been suspended as an active Michigan State football coach less than 24 hours after it was revealed he was the subject of an MSU investigation over allegations of sexual harassment. According to the university, Tucker is on leave pending the outcome of the university’s investigation Detroit Free Press And The athlete.
In a December 2022 complaint filed by Brenda Tracy, a prominent rape survivor and anti-sexual violence activist, Tucker was accused of making sexually suggestive comments during a phone call on April 28, 2022, and masturbating while she “frozen for several minutes.” sat there.”
A formal hearing was held on Oct. 5 and 6, according to USA Today.
According to 247Sports’ Justin Thind, secondary manager Harlon Barnett will serve as interim head coach, while former Spartans manager Mark Dantonio is expected to support the program in a currently undefined role.
False reports on Sunday initially said Tucker had been fired from Michigan State. Rather, the investigation into Title IX will proceed as planned before the university makes a decision on his future leadership of the Spartans program.
Tracy, who shared the details of the complaint with USA Today, has visited MSU as an activist at least three times since 2021 — including once when she was honored as an honorary captain at a Michigan State spring football game — and developed a relationship with Tucker through her work the campus.
Tracy also alleges numerous other inappropriate incidents.
“The idea that someone could know me and say they understand my trauma and then inflict that trauma on me again is so repulsive to me that it’s hard for me to even deal with it,” Tracy told USA Today. “It’s as if he sought me out just to betray me.”
Tracy was gang raped by four men – three college football players and one recruit – in 1998. She went public in 2014 and has since turned that traumatic experience into a message that she has spread throughout college sports: Violence against women must be stopped.
In statements provided to the Title IX investigator, Tucker admitted that the April 28 call occurred; However, he claimed it was a consensual encounter.
“Ms. I was truly touched by Tracy’s distortion of our consensual and intimate relationship with allegations of sexual exploitation,” Tucker wrote in a letter to the investigator, available to USA Today. “I don’t pride myself on my judgment and I find it hard to forgive myself for getting into this situation, but by definition I did not commit any wrongdoing.”
Tucker is off to a 2-0 start in his fourth year at Michigan State after defeating Richmond 45-14 on Saturday night. After leading the Spartans to an 11-2 record in his sophomore season, he signed a 10-year, $95 million guaranteed contract with the school. Since then, the program is just 7-7 and 3-6 in Big Ten play.
There is a clause in Tucker’s contract that would allow MSU to fire him for cause “if the coach engages in conduct that constitutes moral reprehensibility” or if MSU believes that such conduct constitutes the university embarrassed.
Michigan State continues to try to restore its reputation after ignoring decades-long complaints against Larry Nassar, an MSU physician and former USA Gymnastics physician, who is accused of sexually abusing hundreds of female athletes. Nassar was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison in verdicts handed down between 2017 and 2018.