Maisel: Firing of Art Briles a milestone in college football standards

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Mark this day down. Turn the corner of this page in the college football family bible. Someone in the gridiron-industrial complex stood up and said some standards are more important than winning.

Baylor will fire head coach Art Briles, who in the past five years has won 50 games and two Big 12 Conference championships. The university also forced president Kenneth Starr to relinquish the job and reprimanded athletic director Ian McCaw. But Starr will be university chancellor, and McCaw will still be AD. Briles received the harshest punishment.

“We were horrified by the extent of these acts of sexual violence on our campus,” Baylor Board of Regents chairman Richard Willis said in a statement. “This investigation revealed the University’s mishandling of reports in what should have been a supportive, responsive and caring environment for students. The depth to which these acts occurred shocked and outraged us.”

Editor’s PicksTimeline: The rise and fall of Baylor’s Art Briles

Art Briles took Baylor from doormat to championships, but his rise was undone by lack of discipline to athletes charged with sexual assault. Here’s a timeline of Briles’ career.

Briles’ dismissal is different from Barry Switzer being forced out at Oklahoma, or Jim Tressel at Ohio State, to name two other highly successful coaches who lost their jobs because of their program’s misdeeds off the field. Oklahoma and Ohio State live among the blue bloods of the sport. Both programs regained their status within college football and maintain it to the present day.

Baylor asking Briles to leave is like Facebook turning on Mark Zuckerberg. Both of these CEOs created something where nothing existed.

Briles won while protecting several players from the criminal justice system. Once upon a time, football coaches did this the same way they ordered players to run. The university and the coach considered that duty a part of their job. Hall of Fame coach Bobby Bowden, late in his career at Florida State, lamented the passing of the era when a phone call with the chief of police would clean up …

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