The adults in Brigham Young University’s athletic department believe in doing the right thing — when everyone’s watching them.
Their athletic director will then take the floor before BYU volleyball’s next home game, with a microphone in his right hand and small piece of blue paper in his left. He will peek at his notes before reminding the fans in attendance for a second time that he’s the athletic director and, therefore, accountability falls on him.
Then, he’ll point his finger at the crowd, strike the role of a fatherly figure and sternly warn the fans not to cross the line. The video, posted on the team’s Twitter account for all to see, ends there.
Similarly, the Buffalo Bills will place their culture over football — when everyone’s looking.
Their general manager will confirm this while addressing reporters following the release of Matt Araiza, the rookie punter who was allowed to compete for and win a roster spot in the weeks after the team learned he had been accused of raping a 17-year-old girl.
The GM, too, will need to glance down at a sheet of paper before remembering to express sympathy for “this whole situation.” Then, without the benefit of prepared notes, his words will trickle out in a low and serious tone as he proclaims what’s important.
“Again, this is bigger than football,” Bills GM Brandon Beane said Saturday. “Our culture here is more important [to] us than winning football games.”
Only when their silos toppled and closed doors opened — and people started paying attention — did BYU and the Bills act courageously.
When Duke sophomore Rachel Richardson prepared to serve Friday night, during a match played inside the relative anonymity of a field house that crowds some 5,600 fans in Provo, Utah, the n-word was lobbed back at her. Not one authority figure on the BYU coaching staff or one athletic official in attendance did anything to address the situation in the moment, Richardson noted in her Twitter statement. And no one in the stands, a canvas of young White faces behind Richardson, showed the humanity to silence the harassment.
Without interruption or admonition, Richardson was allowed to be called everything but a child of God. Until her godmother shamed BYU in tweets that went viral, this private university sponsored by a religious organization remained in its bunker, ignoring racism in its midst.
Before the next game, BYU Athletic Director Tom Holmoe asked all fans representing the school to treat guests with respect “so that we can be disciples of Christ.” But he did so a day too late.
The Bills’ timing was even worse; they waited until Araiza’s gang-rape allegation became public to distance themselves from their sixth-round draft pick. We may never know the extent of Buffalo’s in-house investigation — the accuser’s attorney notified the team’s legal counsel July 31 and, according to Beane, the Bills used their law enforcement resources to get the facts.
However, it’s clear that when no one else knew about the gruesome details of the October 2021 night — when a 17-year-old said she was gang-raped by Araiza and his college teammates — the Bills went on making football decisions as usual.
For almost a month, they had knowledge of the accusations. They knew that a teenage girl in San Diego had hired an attorney. They were aware that the word “rape” was being attached to Araiza’s name. And they still played Araiza in their Aug. 13 preseason opener.
That day, Araiza boomed an 82-yard punt, building anticipation from the fan base and drawing praise from Coach Sean McDermott. Early last week, the Bills released veteran Matt Haack, signaling that Araiza had won the job.
And even on the day before the accuser filed a civil suit in San Diego against Araiza and two of his college teammates, McDermott appeared on a podcast and continued to hail Araiza’s punting abilities. At that time, few people outside Buffalo and San Diego knew about the allegations, so McDermott could still say with a straight face that Araiza was “a great kid.”
Days later, after the allegations had surfaced, McDermott did not play Araiza in his team’s final preseason game. The coach struck a more somber tone.
“I understand there was a game just played, but I want to talk about something that’s more important, which is what we have going on with one of our members of our team right now in Matt Araiza,” McDermott said. “It is a situation that is extremely serious, just hard to go through, and it’s not a situation that I or we take lightly whatsoever.”
In defending the team’s actions since late July, Beane said the Bills wanted to be exhaustive, even though they never interviewed the accuser, according to her attorney. They didn’t want to rush to judgment. They’re not the judge and jury. And they’re certainly not detectives, Beane said.
“We don’t have the means to put all the facts together. … He’s a football coach. I’m a GM,” Beane said, as though this franchise valued at $3.4 billion couldn’t afford to employ trained investigators who could have interviewed the witnesses. “Like, we don’t have access to everything. And so that’s more important than playing football. And so we want Matt to focus on that.”
So, no, the Bills are not private eyes. They are just another NFL team with no clue how to handle assault allegations. Learning nothing from the Houston Texans’ and the Cleveland Browns’ fumbling of the Deshaun Watson lawsuits, Buffalo’s plan of action appeared to consist of waiting and wishing the situation away. It took the accuser’s lawsuit coming to light for the Bills to cut Araiza — and to suddenly remember their franchise culture.
Teams can brag about zero-tolerance policies and core values, but they mean nothing if they are used only as shields against public outcry. BYU and the Bills waited in silence when no one was looking — until embarrassing headlines left them no choice, at which point they spent the weekend attempting to nudge their way back to their supposed principles. They waited too long for these acts of bravery to be trusted.