Finn Brailles refuses to walk away

Six years after he was fired by Baylor University for his role in creating the football program that has become synonymous with sexual assault, Art Brills is finally back in high school.

Grambling State announced Thursday that Brillis, who was the head coach of the Baylor Bears from 2008 to 2016, has… Hired as the team’s offensive coordinator. He will join former Cleveland Browns coach Hugh Jackson, who was chosen in December to lead Grambling’s football program. After the hire was announced, Grambling’s athletic director Trayvean Scott spoke to ESPN and gave a sweaty answer about why he and Jackson felt hiring Briles was the right choice:

“I’m really rooted,” Scott told ESPN’s Pete Thamel. “I know a lot of things were said and done. We felt it [was appropriate] To give him a chance to really redeem himself after understanding where the facts lie.”

ESPN

In case you forgot exactly why Brills is seeking a chance to “redeem himself”, here activate: According to the Baylor Board of Regents, 17 footballers committed at least 19 rapes between 2011 and 2016. A later settled lawsuit alleged that 52 rapes were carried out by 31 players in a four-year period. An investigation into Baylor’s institutional failure to prevent these assaults, the full results of which have not been made public, led to the release of Brillis.

Brillis’ return to the college coaching ranks now, all these years later, demonstrates his consistent refusal to accept that the sport would be better off without him. Brailles is now 66 years old, and when Baylor fired him he was I reached an undisclosed settlement With the school that definitely filled his huge bank account already. It was easier for Brills to slip into comfortable retirement, live out the rest of his days in utmost comfort and accept his failures. But Brillis remained determined, and when there were no college coaching cars available to him, he went to train in Canada, then to Italy, and then to Texas high school ballAnd now, finally, to Grambling.

The long and winding path that Brills has taken to return to college football is evidence of how little he cares about accepting the consequences of his actions. Someone who defiantly crawls out of a pit of shame and then spends six years trying to rebuild their reputation and appeal in remote places seems to me the kind of person who really believes that they are deserve for soccer training. Not being a football coach – not being a man people are supposed to admire, trust and look up to – is something Brillis simply couldn’t accept. The basic facts of reality may be enough to convince most people that Brillis is not a man to be admired, self-confident and aspiring to, but Brillis was never the one who allowed reality to interfere with his own perception of the world. Look how far you’ve come.