Emma Keith: Column: Lebby is the wrong man for the job

Dec. 11—Last weekend, the University of Oklahoma made a hire we commended and celebrated.

This Friday, OU made a hire that signals, yet again, that the university seems to value winning football games over character.

OU announced Friday afternoon that it will officially hire Jeff Lebby, who comes straight from Ole Miss, as its offensive coordinator.

Lebby is talented, no doubt — he's done big things for the Rebels' offense and has won awards for his work.

But Lebby, the son-in-law of disgraced former Baylor Coach Art Briles, also spent years in the coaching program of a university that ignored the culture of rape and assault that festered among its football players.

Lebby was at Baylor for eight seasons as an assistant coach during that time.

It's unclear the extent of what Lebby knew about what was happening in his then-program. But a lawsuit from a former Baylor student alleges Lebby had direct knowledge that a player had assaulted her, and that he took no action and made no reports about it. The player allegedly assaulted the woman twice more in the following weeks.

The Oklahoman reports that after Briles was fired for his role in the Baylor scandal, Lebby continued to defend his father-in-law, and made t-shirts to support him.

For a program of OU's caliber, it should be extremely easy to hire men who haven't faced allegations of ignoring and trivializing domestic violence that happened right under their noses. There are plenty of them. It's very easy not to hire anyone intimately associated with the most disgusting, tragic scandal to ever occur in our conference.

It's also important for OU to avoid bringing that kind of history to their program, which has already struggled with a few issues of violence against women on its own in the last decade.

In 2014, Joe Mixon received just one year of suspension from the team after he was caught on security camera punching a woman's head at Pickleman's. Bob Stoops, David Boren and Joe Castiglione looked at a video of a man breaking a woman's jaw and cheekbone and decided that the worst he deserved was one year away from football.

Later, Sooner fans learned that the university's background check process had somehow missed the two domestic violence arrests on wide receiver Dede Westbrook's record before OU recruited him. The information, dug up by The Tulsa World, revealed the cracks in OU's vetting process.

That same vetting process was not thoroughly explained in Castiglione's statement announcing Lebby's hiring Friday.

The athletic director said OU "completed a thorough review and background check" on Lebby, and that his former employers spoke highly of him. Castiglione did not mention any facts that dispute the allegations against Lebby at Baylor, or his defense of Briles.

The university can't send the message that talent is more important than basic respect for women. As a woman and an OU graduate, it's frustrating to see the university make this choice.

At the end of the day, no one has a birthright to a coaching position. It's a job, in a college program like OU's, that grants a tremendous amount of responsibility and influence over a team.

It's a job that should be earned via a combination of talent, leadership and character, like any other job that requires stewarding and teaching young people.

At Baylor, Lebby used that influence to, at the very least, look the other way as abuse against women occurred. Lebby is not a leader, and he does not deserve this job. Talent does not overshadow character when power is involved.

OU, find someone else for the job.

Emma Keith is the editor of The Transcript, where she covers Norman Public Schools and the University of Oklahoma. Reach her at ekeith@normantranscript.com or at @emma_ckeith.