Mount Vernon HS grid coach brings trouble … who knew?

A part of me isn’t terribly surprised by the story that developed over yonder at Mount Vernon High School. Then again, is it fair to lay the responsibility of this tempest at the feet of the newly hired football coach? Oh, probably not.

But still …

Two Mount Vernon High School football players have been ruled ineligible to play. The school won’t suffer any forfeiture of games after playing these student-athletes during the team’s first five games of this football season. The University Interscholastic League had considered the forfeiture on the basis of the players enrolling at Mount Vernon simply to play football; the UIL thought differently. It won’t take away the first five wins from Mount Vernon, but the players remain ineligible.

Here, though, is where it gets weird. The new Mount Vernon HS head coach is Art Briles, the former head coach at Baylor University. Briles was fired in the wake of a sex scandal that occurred in Waco involving student-athletes who played for Briles. A law firm hired by Baylor determined that Briles should have acted to prevent the sexual assaults that were occurring, but didn’t.

The scandal also cost the athletic director his job as well as that of the president of the school, Kenneth Starr. Briles was shown the door. He coached football abroad for a couple of years before he got the call to coach Mount Vernon High School.

So, now he’s back in the game (so to speak) in this country. Granted, the eligibility issue concerning the two young men who were deemed ineligible has not a thing to do with the nature of the scandal that erupted at Baylor University.

It just seems to me that trouble seems to follow Art Briles.

Or … maybe it’s just a coincidence.

Strange, man.