Gary Crowton’s In The News, And In The Worst Possible Way
By petevolk
Deadspin recently published a series entitled “No Honor”, where they exposed the hypocrisy, racism, and just flat-out awful behavior of the BYU athletic program. A large chunk of what they focused on took place while current Maryland offensive coordinator Gary Crowton was the head coach of the Cougars’ football team, and he doesn’t come out of this looking like such a great guy.
Most damaging (for Crowton specifically) was the interview with former running back Thomas Stancil, who was involved in a group sex incident at the school. Here’s part of the piece (this part took place before Stancil’s own honor code violation):
"We had some recruit coming to school. I just told him what it was really like at BYU. I told him that if he was going to come here and think he was going to be having sex with all these women and partying, you got the wrong school. The next day the guy redid his plane ticket and left. The coach rushed me into the office, and there was Gary Crowton sitting right there, and he said, “I’m not going to renew your scholarship.”"
Another player, running back Ray Hudson, was recruited by Crowton. Hudson had a child out of wedlock (a fact he says Crowton knew) before he signed the honor code and before he committed to the Cougars, and was still suspended for a semester having the child.
The most damaging facts for BYU’s program come from the flagship piece – The Truth About Race, Religion And The Honor Code At BYU (all the stories are linked below).
"Since 1993, according to our research, at least 70 athletes have been suspended, dismissed, put on probation, or forced to withdraw from their teams or the school after running afoul of the honor code. Fifty-four of them, or nearly 80 percent, are minorities. Forty-one, or almost 60 percent, are black men.Clearly, though, something is amiss at BYU, where around 23 percent of the athletes are minorities, according to the university. Only .6 percent of the student body is black (176 out of the 32,947 students enrolled in 2010). Yet a majority of the honor code violations involve black athletes. Do these numbers mean these athletes “sin” more than everyone else? Hardly. Several former BYU football players told us that their white teammates routinely broke the honor code and got away with it, either because they didn’t get caught or because their violations were covered up."
As for Crowton, he is mentioned in this story as well. Two cases of alleged rape culminated “in the departure of then-head coach of the football team, Gary Crowton”.
Here are the stories, they are all an absolute must read:
The Truth About Race, Religion, And The Honor Code At BYU
In His Own Words: Thomas Stancil, Running Back (2002-03)
In His Own Words: Ray Hudson, Running Back (2004-06)