Written by Max Olson at ESPN.com
New Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades vowed Monday during his introductory news conference to repair the culture of the Bears’ football program.
Rhoades, whom Baylor hired away from Missouri last week, said at Big 12 media days in Dallas that he intends to reform a department rocked by its sexual assault scandal by prioritizing a standard that no one entity is greater than the university.
“It’s a commitment to excellence in everything we do,” said Rhoades, who takes over Aug. 15. “There are just certain things we won’t tolerate, and moving forward, everybody will be on that same page.”
On a day when Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said conference presidents are “deeply concerned” about being associated with Baylor’s issues, and one day before Baylor leadership presents more information on how it is addressing those issues to the league’s board of directors, Rhoades made his debut and expressed his excitement about the opportunity to lead Baylor forward.
Baylor interim president David Garland appeared at Rhoades’ introduction and spoke with reporters afterward. He reiterated the school will not release any more details or a written report from its Pepper Hamilton investigation, even though Bowlsby and the league have requested more.
“There is no more information to really give out,” Garland said. “And I know that may be hard to believe. The information would be more salacious details, and I’m just not going to do that.”
Despite that stance, Rhoades promised this: “We’re going to be transparent. Every stop I’ve been at, we’ve been transparent. We’ve been transparent with the university, the donors, the fans, and we’re going to continue to do that. That’s just how we’re going to operate.”
The new AD has yet to set foot on Baylor’s campus — he’ll do so Tuesday — and acknowledged he doesn’t have a “deep level of understanding” about everything that took place at the school. But he’s not afraid to make further changes.
“Certainly there has to be some changes, there have been changes already, and I’ll determine whether or not that’s enough and whether or not we need to move even farther,” Rhoades said.
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