Things have gone from bad to ugly to worse for Michigan State University and their athletic programs for the past ten days.
It all started when former MSU doctor Larry Nassar had a week-long of court trials, facing many of his former victims in a horrendous sexual abuse scandal. Nassar was then sentenced to 40-175 years in prison on Wednesday. Later that day, University President Lou Anna K. Simon resigned, as she had come under significant fire for her role in the case. Then on Friday, athletic director Mark Hollis announced he was stepping down, but that wasn’t the big news.
Roughly after an hour after Hollis announced his resignation, ESPN dropped a bombshell on Michigan State and its’ athletic programs for taking sexual assault lightly, and in some cases, covering it up. The report specifically took shots at the football program, coached by Mark Dantonio, and the men’s basketball program, coached by Tom Izzo. Both of these guys are high-profile, prominent, well-known coaches who have garnered the respect of many over the years.
This report came as a shock to many, though it conveniently left out many key details and appeared to try to lump the Larry Nassar scandal and these two coaches together. It also came at a peculiar time, as it appeared ESPN may have been trying to garner as much attention and as many views as possible. Popular Detroit radio host Mike Valenti took notice of this.
Today, he came on his daily show on 97.1 “The Ticket” at 2 p.m. and led off by destroying ESPN for what he called a ‘disgusting, dishonest’ report. You can see a full clip of his rant in the video below:
Whether or not you agree with Valenti or not, is up to you. We are still a long ways from having all of the facts on this matter, and this investigation is just getting started. Buckle up.
