University of Minnesota head football coach Tracy Claeys told WCCO radio Sunday morning that he knows he could lose his job over the players' recent two-day boycott of the team.
As he met with his players Thursday as the boycott began, Claeys said he told them, "There's a great chance I could lose my job over this."
The players ended their boycott of all team activities early Saturday morning, with several senior leaders on the team making the announcement on campus.
On risking his job, Claeys said: "That was the commitment on my part. I knew that was a possibility in happening. That's why that meeting took a long time, to go through the fallouts."
The other "fallouts" of the boycotts discussed were being painted as people who dismiss sexual assault claims _ Claeys said several times on WCCO the team takes sexual assault allegations seriously, and wants to use the bowl game as a platform to support the cause _ and being accused of trying to "overthrow power," Claeys said.
"This was not about getting somebody replaced," Claeys said, speaking of the players' boycott. "President Kaler and the Board [of Regents] have been very supportive of athletics, as has the whole university."
The players' boycott put their Holiday Bowl commitment at risk. The Gophers announced they would return to playing at a 9 a.m. meeting with media on Saturday, just hours short of becoming the first college football team in over 50 years to back out of a bowl game in protest.
Claeys said the boycott focused most on the fairness of the punishment: 10 players being suspended from the team by school leaders in the fallout of a university investigation into an alleged Sept. 2 sexual assault.
"The thing was on the due process and how this all came about," Claey said.
Claeys has been supportive of his players' boycott, on Twitter on Thursday night and again Sunday.
"I want to make sure everybody understands I think our kids did a great job with the statement they released and in their cause," he said.
Claeys also told WCCO radio that he himself will be donating $50,000 in support of victims of sexual assault.
The players' decision to end the boycott came about early Saturday, several sources told the Star Tribune, because the details of the 80-page sexual assault investigation report _ available to read for the first time to most players late Friday _ "changed the narrative" of the situation.
"As a team, we understand that what has occurred these past few days, and playing football for the University of Minnesota, is larger than just us," senior receiver Drew Wolitarsky said, reading from a two-page, typed statement.
Earlier Saturday, there was a vote taken at a players-only meeting, sources said. It's then it was decided they would return, clearing the path for the team to remain committed to the Dec. 27 Holiday Bowl in San Diego against Washington State.
The team had left a Friday night meeting with University President Eric Kaler set on carrying through on their protest of 10 teammates being suspended, the result of a university investigation into a Sept. 2 sexual assault allegation.
By 1:30 a.m., the Gophers seniors were ready to end their boycott. That's when a group text went out: "Players-only meeting 6 a.m." Many of them didn't sleep.
At 9 a.m., the Gophers' senior leaders announced the walkout was over, even though they received no concessions from Kaler.
"The kids made this decision on their own to play in the bowl game," Claeys told WCCO listeners Sunday morning. "And we'll go out there [with] whoever we have, and we'll play extremely hard. And it's all about representing the team and the university, all our alumns in a first class manner."
The university's Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action report came into wide public view Friday afternoon when it was first obtained and published by KSTP-TV.
The EOAA report, the result of the school's federally mandated investigation of the alleged sexual assault, described in deep detail how a female student and more than 10 men were involved in an incident in the early morning of Sept. 2, hours after the Gophers' first game of the season.
Sources said the players absorbing the detailed report for the first time was a main factor in ending the boycott. "Once they read the report," one source said, the "narrative" of the boycott changed.
The EOAA recommended expulsion for five players who did have sexual contact with the victim _ Ray Buford, Carlton Djam, KiAnte Hardin, Dior Johnson and Tamarion Johnson; one-year suspensions from the university for Seth Green, Kobe McCrary, Mark Williams and Antoine Winfield Jr., and probation for Antonio Shenault.
Lee Hutton, the attorney for all 10 players, has already filed their appeals.
