Today we speak with Jessica Luther, author of "Unsportsmanlike Conduct." Jessica Luther is and independent writer and investigative journalist living in Austin, Texas. Her work on sports and culture has appeared in the Texas Observer and the Austin Chronicle, and at Sport Illustrated, Texas Monthly, Vice Sports, Guardian Sport, and Bleacher Report. Luther's work gained national attention in August 2015 when writing for Texas Monthly; she and Dan Solomon broke open the story about a Baylor football player on trial for sexual assault, a case known by only a few in the community and not reported in the media for nearly two years.
Football teams create playbooks, in which they draw up the plays they will use on the field. Playbooks are how teams work and why they win. This book is about a different kind of playbook: the one coaches, teams, universities, police, communities, the media, and fans seam to follow whenever a college football player is accused of sexual assault. It's a deep dive into how different institutions--the NCAA, athletic departments, universities, the media--run the same plays over and over again when these stories break. If everyone runs his play well, scrutiny dies down quickly, no institution ever has to change how it operates, and the evaporation of these cases into nothingness looks natural. In short, this playbook is why nothing ever changes.
