Iowa Strength Coach Chris Doyle Responds After Being Put On Administrative Leave After Racist Allegations Were Made By Former Players
So it's been an interesting weekend for the Iowa football program to say the least. Dozens of former football players have come out on social media to voice their stories about how they didn't feel comfortable playing football at Iowa and were subjected to alleged racist treatment by members of the coaching staff.
It started with this James Daniels tweet
Jaleel Johnson specifically called out strength and conditioning coach Chris Doyle and offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz
Those tweets led to many many many other former Iowa football players taking to Twitter to tell their stories
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I'm sure I missed tweets and stories from other former players but those were the ones I saw over the course of the weekend. It's bad shit man. Real bad shit. It fucking sucks that black players at the University of Iowa didn't feel comfortable most of the time and were subject to racist shit from some of the coaches on the staff. As I'm sure you picked up on it sounds like a lot of the problems begin with coach Chris Doyle. Doyle was a common theme in the majority of the stories told by the players. It would appear that there's a major culture problem for Iowa football and a lot of those problems stem from the way Chris Doyle treats black players.
Head coach Kirk Ferentz then put out a video statement and announced that Chris Doyle would be put on administrative leave
George Kittle voiced his support for his former teammates
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Then today Chris Doyle released a statement
Woof. Listen I'm no PR genius but I would've told Doyle to stop saying words after the 3rd paragraph. Tough to say, "It's time to listen" and then immediately start talking again. He literally said it's time to listen and then followed that with the longest paragraph from his statement about how it's time to listen. Not great. Not to mention the 3rd paragraph pretty much says, "Okay yeah a few players are saying I said these things, and listen I've made mistakes and maybe I did say some of those things, but wait until you see how many players I wasn't a racist asshole to." Again, not great. I don't know where the Iowa football program goes from here (a Chris Doyle firing doesn't seem too far away but who knows) but those former players voicing their stories of mistreatment is hopefully the start of some change in Iowa City.