Mel Tucker releases Statement in Response to Tracy Allegations
Makes a brief mention of Harbaugh, which Harbaugh said he doesn't know anything about. Lots to unpack here. Is it a Title IX investigation or not? If it isn't, why wouldn't the AD have known about it sooner?
September 11th, 2023 at 6:41 PM ^
Yea, theres a lot of jumping on the bandwagon against tuck here.
Why is it only Tuck who isnt professional? clearly Tracy also participated for weeks in this "inappropriate relationship" too
September 11th, 2023 at 6:52 PM ^
My wife said the exact same thing. Something to the extent that she was "pretty out of bounds" maintaining that type of workplace/contractor relationship.
September 11th, 2023 at 8:05 PM ^
I agree. Her phone records alone would attest to the likelihood that this was more than just a professional relationship. But even if that was the case and even if there was a flirtatious relationship between them, it’s also very likely that he crossed a serious red line by jerking off while on the phone with her and without her consent.
I can also understand why she didn’t just hang up the phone if that was the case. Because they had a close relationship and friendship, this introduced a really messed up and uncomfortable dynamic to the situation and from what I understand, it’s not unusual for a victim to “freeze” in that sort of situation, especially if it was unexpected.
September 11th, 2023 at 9:08 PM ^
Yes, people need to read the USA Today write up.
What Tuck did was still disgusting though
September 11th, 2023 at 6:53 PM ^
It’s easy to pile on in this situation. You have the rivalry and you have the classic knee jerk reactions that we saw with Matt Araiza.
He’s insanely idiotic for getting involved with her at all. Like, of all people and of all schools, and all of those dollars signs. Like how idiotic can you be.
with that being said his statements have a lot of details that could be proven or disproven. Everything yesterday was ‘he said. she said’. They both deleted their text messages.
I don’t want this to get twisted into victim blaming. I’m saying that I believe that there is more to the story than what was presented yesterday. His statement is rambling nonsense, but also plausible.
The fact that she deleted hers make me believe that there is more to this story.
September 11th, 2023 at 7:27 PM ^
I'm sure there is more to the story as well. They were calling each other for half an hour at night every other week for over a year to discuss professional matters? Come on.
Certainly there was reciprocal romantic interest for some of that time. I think I believe his claim she sent flirty texts, pictures, etc., at least at some point in their relationship. None of that invalidates her harassment claim.
Still, even if everything he wrote is true and the weird one-way phone sex thing was consensual (which, to be clear, I do not believe), this is still 100% a fireable offense, with cause. The MSU football program caught a huge break here.
September 11th, 2023 at 7:55 PM ^
He had 80 million dollars and a coaching future to lose. His lack of judgment alone is suspect.
Did she play a bigger part in this than is being reported? I bet she did. But the preponderance of evidence shows that he persued it more than her. So a he-say/she-say is just that. But phone records don't go away.
September 11th, 2023 at 8:17 PM ^
The whole purpose of the statement is to be rambling bullshit where enough people will pick up on one detail and decide it's fishy. Based on this thread it seems to have worked. 100% that was not drafted by Tucker and is almost entirely meaningless.
September 13th, 2023 at 1:59 AM ^
I feel like it ultimately does not matter because there was a power imbalance. Followed by essentially canceling her appearance. January and February are down time for college football. How well would she have had their attention then? Why did he postpone her coming? The rest we will probably will never know but it is fireable and there is a reason even consensual relationships can be seen as sexual harassment when they are followed by something that affects the lower person's job prospects in that company.
September 11th, 2023 at 6:54 PM ^
He provided nothing evidentiary other than 1. he sent her money to buy athletic shoes 2. he donated to her nonprofit 3. she sent a father's day card to him after the incident. I don't see how any of that is convincing.
Other than that, what was compelling to you? That he for some reason mentioned Jim Harbaugh? That he attacked her character? Or railed against the people trying to fire him?
September 11th, 2023 at 10:02 PM ^
What causes you to believe a person you don’t know unconditionally?
September 11th, 2023 at 10:15 PM ^
The strong smell of doodoo emanating from the gaping maw of your best friend, Melvin "horseshit" Tucker
September 11th, 2023 at 8:08 PM ^
He didn't write that. His mendacious lawyer did.
September 11th, 2023 at 6:35 PM ^
Sorry Mel, it'sgoing to take more than "and even her more recent criticism of coach Harbaugh" to get Michigan fans to believe you.
September 11th, 2023 at 6:37 PM ^
That was such a weird thing to say. Did she say something publicly about Harbaugh? She was an honorary captain FFS
September 11th, 2023 at 6:38 PM ^
I don't have the tweet handy, but Harbaugh was asked about it and he said something like "I don't know anything about it, I know and respect Brenda Tracy"
September 11th, 2023 at 6:49 PM ^
“Don't know anything about it. I know Brenda Tracy. Respect her a lot. She's done really good things, talked to our team. As far as — I’m not in a position to weigh in on it. Have no understanding or facts on the matter.”
That's Jim's quote via Alejandro Zuniga
September 11th, 2023 at 7:30 PM ^
Aaand Tracy just tweeted in support of Harbaugh.
September 11th, 2023 at 7:48 PM ^
According to the RCMB (I know,) she's been a Michigan fan all along, and this is her latest attempt to bring Spartan athletics down.
September 11th, 2023 at 8:01 PM ^
That is gold.
September 11th, 2023 at 8:26 PM ^
Living in those dudes heads rent free.
September 11th, 2023 at 11:07 PM ^
Wait, they spent 2 days saying this is the best day in Spartan history as it gets them out of a boondoggle contract for a disengaged alcoholic coach. So how are they against her and calling her a Michigan fan when she did MSU a great favor?
It's all so confusing.
September 11th, 2023 at 11:22 PM ^
The Blue Wall and Tracy thought they were sticking it to MSU but it backfired and turns out they did MSU a favor.
No contradictions here.
September 12th, 2023 at 11:16 AM ^
I'm sorry, but isn't this actually helping MSU.
September 11th, 2023 at 6:35 PM ^
If you had Harbaugh and race on your bingo card, you win.
Also, mentioning Harbaugh is bonkers to being with, but not naming Izzo and instead using a reference to "iconic MSU coach"? Clown.
September 11th, 2023 at 6:50 PM ^
"iconic coaches", plural.
Considering that this is MSU and given the "bonkers" nature of most of this situation I wouldn't be entirely shocked if one of the "iconic MSU coach" was actually Mark Dantonio. They both share their experiences as MSU coaches having been unfairly persecuted after all.
September 11th, 2023 at 9:25 PM ^
Of course it's Dantonio and Izzo and of course Tracy would criticize them. Their record on sexual assaults by their athletes are both terrible.
September 11th, 2023 at 6:52 PM ^
Mentioning Harbaugh in his "only chance to tell my side of the story'' statement about him jacking his wiener is the most little brother move that could have been pulled.
Embarrassing.
September 11th, 2023 at 6:40 PM ^
If there was only some way to retrieve deleted texts and pictures.
September 11th, 2023 at 6:44 PM ^
The fact that she deleted them in the first place is going to take center stage in whatever court battle plays out here.
September 11th, 2023 at 6:53 PM ^
Which is bonkers because everyone deletes texts. I've got mine to auto-delete after 30 days. But this will become a thing because one of the deflate-gate points was "Tom Brady deleted his text messages."
September 11th, 2023 at 7:00 PM ^
Well there's deleting texts that your wife sent you about picking up something from the grocery store and then there's deleting texts from a guy you allegedly believed sexually assaulted you discussing the actual sexual assault.
Full disclosure, I'm no law expert, but I have to imagine it will be very important to Tucker's lawyers to suss out the reasoning behind doing that.
September 11th, 2023 at 7:19 PM ^
If you have them set to delete automatically, there’s no discrimination as to what does and does not get deleted. Tucker deleted his too (could be automatically as well).
September 11th, 2023 at 8:09 PM ^
She's already admitted deleting them deliberately, very soon after the final phone call. She wanted him gone, like burning somebody's letters back when there were such things.
At that point (at least according to her timeline, which nothing's contradicted afaik) she didn't intend to bring a complaint. She rethought it later, after he ghosted her.
Canceling her contract with the university was a stone-cold firing offense no matter what had happened up to that point. That kind of power-abuse is the reason for the existence of all the institutional regs he'd already violated; once he went there he was done and deserved to be.
September 11th, 2023 at 8:22 PM ^
If you read the USAToday article, she is quoted as saying she purposefully deleted all of his texts because the incident and as a reaction to it. Says it was done in a state of shock.
I could go either way on believing this. But if I had to guess, her text thread with him showed that they had a personal relationship of some kind and she was likely flirtatious with him. It doesn’t mean that Tucker didn’t cross a line by doing the phone sex thing without her consent, but it wouldn’t make her story look as strong if it were still there.
The absolutely certain thing according to both of their stories is that their friendship broke apart right after the phone sex/harassment. And the best explanation for that, given all the evidence we currently have, is that what Mel did made her suddenly feel super uncomfortable and upset.
September 11th, 2023 at 6:56 PM ^
I can see deleting them. If she got into a flirtatious relationship and then found herself on a call where he's masturbating and she thinks, "Holy crap, what have I gotten myself into?" She may blame herself for letting it get that far. If only she had stopped it before he went there. It freaked her out. I mean, if she objected afterwards (there's no recording of the call so we don't really know how she responded) and he counters with, "You accepted all my gifts, you led me on! This is on you!" and she realizes then what just happened, she might want to erase it all. I would. It isn't necessarily a sign of nefarious intent. It could be a sign of wanting to forget this ever happened.
September 11th, 2023 at 7:28 PM ^
But wouldn’t you want to keep them for when you filed the complaint?
September 11th, 2023 at 7:45 PM ^
Yes but only if you knew you wanted to file a complaint at that time. Though I’ve deleted plenty of messages that I’ve gone back and retrieved from my automatic backups to iCloud, so maybe they can do that. 🤷♀️
September 11th, 2023 at 7:52 PM ^
It takes a little bit of work to manually delete messages from iCloud if you have multiple apple devices because you have to search for and delete them from each device.
September 11th, 2023 at 7:59 PM ^
I don't know the timeline but I think it's possible she deleted them reflexively, and then thought about it and decided that he had crossed the line in what she thought was a professional relationship.
September 11th, 2023 at 8:11 PM ^
That makes the most sense.
September 11th, 2023 at 8:24 PM ^
Wendy, after reading what both sides had to say, I think this is by far the most likely scenario.
September 14th, 2023 at 2:09 AM ^
On an even more generic level, I often delete texts that upset me because I am OCD and will stare at them compulsively getting more upset so I know it is better for me to delete.
On a related note and I am being serious--is it just that I have an iPhone? I don't feel like my texts (iMessages to be specific) ever completely disappear. Like I can kill them on my phone but they are still on my (Mac) laptop. If this came to legal proceedings, can texts truly be destroyed forever? Serious question.
September 11th, 2023 at 11:40 PM ^
I bet this is settled and everyone walks away with millions courtesy of MSU and the state of Michigan taxpayers.!! Question: who is the next MSU head-coach?!
September 11th, 2023 at 9:07 PM ^
I think people are missing your sarcasm? Deleted texts and pictures don’t just disappear. A forensic analysis of the data from the cell company will reveal exactly what was communicated. It may save him some face, and allow him to extort MSU for some of what is left on his contract, but he is losing his job.
September 12th, 2023 at 8:57 AM ^
Yup, everything gets logged. and those logs are saved to a report server with petabytes of space.
September 11th, 2023 at 6:45 PM ^
Somewhere in the middle of what he said and she said is the truth. Either way both sides are saying their truth and the only people who knows whose lying is the other person. However, his side of the story hits almost all the check marks on what most people say when a person accuses them of improper sexual advances. They are trying to extort me, check. Cover the obvious character flaw by explaining you were separated from your spouse in secret, check. They accused me for the attention. check. Deflection, check. Not listening to your PR person when they say, you don't want to go public right now, check. Almost forgot the classic, call them names, check.
September 11th, 2023 at 6:59 PM ^
Somewhere in the middle of what he said and she said is the truth.
Stop it. The strategy of hypertoxic extremism proliferates unabated in this country precisely because idiots like you are so easily pulled in any desired direction by mindlessly splitting the difference between takes.
September 11th, 2023 at 7:41 PM ^
Idiot? Says the person who goes around the internet calling people names for stating a simple opinion. Whatever, start drinking and go to bed, you've clearly had a bad day and I am glad you took it out on me.
September 11th, 2023 at 6:45 PM ^
I am not qualified to tell the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath, nor am I qualified to identify to others when a person is one or the other, however in this case I'm going with BOTH.