OT: Tucker's response to "Intent to Terminate" - ESPN article - link provided

"Suspended Michigan State football coach Mel Tucker responded Tuesday to the school's notice that it intends to fire him for cause, saying in a statement that "other motives are at play" and there's been a "bias" against him throughout the process."

You have to respect a guy who's publicly claiming that he's not being fired for jerking off on the phone with not-his-wife, but rather for being insanely overpaid for being a terrible coach. 

Sounds like he's going to sue to try to get that buyout money. I'm guessing they try to settle quickly since if this goes into discovery it could be bad for MSU. 

Reads to me like a man and his lawyers angling for a large settlement and throwing every issue under the sun in there hoping that at least one of them sticks.  Not that I blame him, I would also want a large settlement if I was in his position.  Muddy up the waters, throw accusations at everyone else, and hope it's worth 20 or 30 million to MSU to make him shut up and go away.

Another interesting piece of info I saw was that Tucker requested FMLA leave prior to the intent to terminate was given to him. 

My question to an employment attorney would be, does the FMLA protect employees who are suspended without pay? And if a termination action is already set in to motion, does a request for FMLA leave fall to the wayside?

Did MSU fuck this up and Tucker is still going to get paid by Michigan tax dollars?

I low-key LOVE that Mel Tucker is going Scorched Earth on this.

What’s that quote from Stalag 17? “Remember, the [Germans] may be dumb, but they ain’t stupid.”

Tucker may be dumb, but he undoubtedly has dirt on MSU. My guess is that he knows he’s done, and the only thing left to angle for is a “pay me to go away and shut up” settlement that the Board of Trustees would be stupid NOT to pay. 

Discovery on any lawsuit would be wild in what it would uncover. I definitely WANT that to happen. But all the MSU parties involved would have to be SPECTACULARLY stupid to allow that. And in cases of “gotta circle the wagons again”, MSU and their corrupt BoT have proven to be only MODERATELY stupid. They definitely understand “money will make this go away”, and they treat the MSU budget like their own piggy bank.

Tucker making noise to get MSU to pay him some $$$ just to make him go away?

I am tired of this story already.

Instead of having popcorn I may go roast marshmallows over a couch fire October 21st!

The lawsuit will be super interesting since a portion of his salary is essentially paid by boosters and I would think those boosters would have to named in the suit.

Also remember back when he kept bonus money intended for his assistant coaches, that came AFTER it would have been known to him he was being investigated.  Pure scumbag this guy.

Rat could easily be one of his own assistant coaches.  

You have to admire Mel’s stick to it of ness on such a sticky issue as this wicket.

I honestly hope it comes out that MSU put this into motion to try and save 80m and everyone goes down in a fire blaze.

He's teetering between burning it all down and trying to salvage his career. 

Interesting tweet.  Shows a pattern of BS.  MSU paid the coaching equivalent of George Costanza 95M.

He can be fired for doing something that brought ridicule to the school. 
Is not all of the articles and discussion proof of that?  It doesn’t matter how it got out. It’s out.  He was potentially safe as long as a small group actually knew about it.  Now it’s known world wide.  
 Case closed.   

I don't know who Mel paid to be his lawyer, but he should get a refund. His continual attempts to slander Tracy are outrageous and absurd. It's like nobody on his legal team has figured out that it doesn't matter if his call with Tracy was consensual or not as far as Michigan State is concerned. The fact it happened, which he admits, is a fireable offense. He can go up and down yelling about redpill crap about women and Tracy, it's not going to change that the university believes it was fireable for him to have a sexual relationship with a university vendor.

Combined with his absolutely deranged defense of himself at the first hearing re: the nonexistent ESPN investigation into Tracy's background and it makes one question if Mel has CTE or something. 

Anyone who brings up the frequency of calls and appearance of there being an intimate relationship seems to get negged into oblivion (I understand bc Tucker is a POS) , but there's no discussion of the actual narrative that connects the dots.  Is this what the consensus is?. . . Tracy speaks at MSU and it goes well. Tucker and her hit it off and start texting each other as platonic friends.  She texts him back and I presume probably excited for potential repeat business and support (i.e. $10k per engagement. Nice! Good for her!).  They become close friends and engage in a few dozen phone calls mostly later in the evening due to their busy schedules.  He sends her a few friendly gifts and donates to her charity and it's all basically very platonic friend stuff or supportive business stuff. Then eventually he becomes romantically interested and she doesn't reciprocate those feelings and things are still escalated by Tucker. She says no to meeting in person.  One night during a 36 minute phone call it starts out normally until she sends him a picture of them together. He tells her she's looks hot, comments about her ass, and then begins masturbating without her consent. She's asks him what he's doing.  He says he has a hard dick, etc. She freezes for several minutes as it brings her back to her horrific past trauma. Eventually she says “If you do this, I don’t ever want to hear about it, we are only friends, that’s it.”  When, he is done she said that he said "Thank you, goodnight sweetheart" and then she's left staring at her phone and crying.  They don't talk for a while. He cancels an engagement they had scheduled. He ignores her call/texts. They finally get on the phone and he threatens her and she fears he'll try to ruin her reputation. 8 months after the call she files the complaint. He tried to stop the investigation saying it's outside the jurisdiction of Title 9, lies about where he was when he called her, and even casts doubt on the validity of her rape story, etc among other weird comments. There's the article she authorized for release once someone leaked her name, then some pointless semantics about what leak means, and yadda yadda. MSU suspends him, etc. 

Now MSU is firing him for cause because he had an inappropriate relationship with an MSU vendor, sexually harassed her, and embarrassed the university. He used his position of power in an attempt to get sex and manipulate her.  Whether it was consensual or not doesn't really matter since he admitted to having phone sex with a university vendor (who happens to be a rape survivor) and violating community values and the terms of his contract. Ultimately, he was more interested in her than her actual cause. The will be a hearing later. He'll probably get some kind of settlement and MSU moves on from him.

Does that pretty much summarize what most agree actually happened and what will happen?

The more this guy talks, the less I see him having another coaching position.  Everyone deserves a second chance, but Tucker just comes across as an immature grown man that isn’t ready for another opportunity.  

He admitted to beating his meat to a vendor who os a rape counselor.  We are done talking dumb ass. 

All I think we have to work on in the public realm is that Mel Tucker had an inappropriate interaction (or plural) as an employee of MSU with one of their vendors.  Given the details as self-disclosed and acknowledged by him, that is grounds for termination.  As it should be.  The rest is pablum, and he is a real dumbass.

guy naturally wants the rest of his buyout money

should have thought of that before you started REDACTED to that woman's phone call