Better late than never, I suppose. I was able to get ahold of the findings of the second investigation into Troy Taylor. I read the first report but until now I wasn't able to read the second report.
Here are some notes/takeaways:
In December of 2023, Bernard Muir provided a "Written Warning summation" to Troy Taylor saying that if he didn't improve is behavior, he could be fired: "Additional behaviors similar to those discussed herein may result in additional corrective action up to and including the termination of your employment."
The second report also concluded that Taylor hadn't made improvements in behavior and that he was especially hostile towards females in terms of his demeanor. Given that, I can't help but wonder why Stanford didn't just fire him after the season or even in the middle of last season. Me writing this outside the Stanford Law school doesn't make me a law expert, but given Taylor received a written warning with the language that it had, Stanford could have fired him for cause at that point since it's pretty apparent such behaviors continued.
Further, I suspect Stanford did indeed fire him for cause and that he only received payment for the time that he was coaching the program. I assume this is why there are rumors/reports of him weighing his legal options to sue the university. The problem he has is he did receive a Written Warning summation from Bernard Muir. I know people like to say Bernard Muir and Cal's AD Jim Knowlton are both at the same level, but this is where Muir gets points ahead of Knowlton. Muir at least gave Taylor such a summation.
To my knowledge, as I've said before, Knowlton did not give Teri McKeever a Written Warning summation for her behavior after Cal swimmers came forward with their allegations of abuse. That made it WAY more thorny for Cal when the allegations against McKeever went public. At least with Stanford and Troy Taylor, when the reports became public, they had already given him such a warning. Thus giving them more latitude to fire him without fear of him suing them.
All of this is to say, I think from a legal standpoint, Stanford is probably sitting on pretty firm ground here with respect to firing Taylor for cause. Their biggest issue is the optics around firing him only after the reports came out, but from a pure legal standpoint, given they gave Taylor such a warning, I don't know what grounds Taylor can really sue assuming his behavior continued in the way that it did. And it seems like his behavior did continue. Taylor would honestly be wise to not sue if he has any interest in returning to college football in some capacity, but if he knows he's done for good, then I suppose a Hail Mary is worth a shot. But that's what it would be for Taylor. A Hail Mary.
I suppose his argument would be that he wouldn't have been fired were it not for the reports being made public. And that's probably true, but given the language of the written report, Stanford can probably still say: "Yeah, true. But, your behavior didn't improve and it continued on. And as we said, we reserved the right to fire you if it continued. There was nothing in there about us only being able to fire you if this wasn't made public by the media."
There was other stuff I found interesting too like Taylor thumbing his nose at them violating NCAA rules and stuff. He didn't seem to care much about that. He also went out of his way to publicly humiliate and berate people in front of others. Presumably with the goal of intimidating them into letting him do what he wants. He also seemed to be more comfortable acting that way towards women. So, I do think there was some gender discrimination/bias going on. It wasn't sexual harassment in terms of him coming onto women. None of that. But he was definitely more hostile towards women and tried to intimidate them. He definitely comes off as sexist.
Anyways, that's pretty much it. I guess this is largely water under the bridge at this point since Frank Reich is in charge and everyone is fired up about spring ball and all. But still worth doing a message board post on at a minimum since I figured some of you would find this interesting. If you have any more questions on what was in the second report, feel free to ask me. I'm an open book on this.
P.S. Reading the findings of the second report makes me all the more glad Stanford fired Taylor. I'm just kinda disappointed it took a media report to force their hand. But at this point, that doesn't really matter. What matters is the right thing happened in the end.
Here are some notes/takeaways:
In December of 2023, Bernard Muir provided a "Written Warning summation" to Troy Taylor saying that if he didn't improve is behavior, he could be fired: "Additional behaviors similar to those discussed herein may result in additional corrective action up to and including the termination of your employment."
The second report also concluded that Taylor hadn't made improvements in behavior and that he was especially hostile towards females in terms of his demeanor. Given that, I can't help but wonder why Stanford didn't just fire him after the season or even in the middle of last season. Me writing this outside the Stanford Law school doesn't make me a law expert, but given Taylor received a written warning with the language that it had, Stanford could have fired him for cause at that point since it's pretty apparent such behaviors continued.
Further, I suspect Stanford did indeed fire him for cause and that he only received payment for the time that he was coaching the program. I assume this is why there are rumors/reports of him weighing his legal options to sue the university. The problem he has is he did receive a Written Warning summation from Bernard Muir. I know people like to say Bernard Muir and Cal's AD Jim Knowlton are both at the same level, but this is where Muir gets points ahead of Knowlton. Muir at least gave Taylor such a summation.
To my knowledge, as I've said before, Knowlton did not give Teri McKeever a Written Warning summation for her behavior after Cal swimmers came forward with their allegations of abuse. That made it WAY more thorny for Cal when the allegations against McKeever went public. At least with Stanford and Troy Taylor, when the reports became public, they had already given him such a warning. Thus giving them more latitude to fire him without fear of him suing them.
All of this is to say, I think from a legal standpoint, Stanford is probably sitting on pretty firm ground here with respect to firing Taylor for cause. Their biggest issue is the optics around firing him only after the reports came out, but from a pure legal standpoint, given they gave Taylor such a warning, I don't know what grounds Taylor can really sue assuming his behavior continued in the way that it did. And it seems like his behavior did continue. Taylor would honestly be wise to not sue if he has any interest in returning to college football in some capacity, but if he knows he's done for good, then I suppose a Hail Mary is worth a shot. But that's what it would be for Taylor. A Hail Mary.
I suppose his argument would be that he wouldn't have been fired were it not for the reports being made public. And that's probably true, but given the language of the written report, Stanford can probably still say: "Yeah, true. But, your behavior didn't improve and it continued on. And as we said, we reserved the right to fire you if it continued. There was nothing in there about us only being able to fire you if this wasn't made public by the media."
There was other stuff I found interesting too like Taylor thumbing his nose at them violating NCAA rules and stuff. He didn't seem to care much about that. He also went out of his way to publicly humiliate and berate people in front of others. Presumably with the goal of intimidating them into letting him do what he wants. He also seemed to be more comfortable acting that way towards women. So, I do think there was some gender discrimination/bias going on. It wasn't sexual harassment in terms of him coming onto women. None of that. But he was definitely more hostile towards women and tried to intimidate them. He definitely comes off as sexist.
Anyways, that's pretty much it. I guess this is largely water under the bridge at this point since Frank Reich is in charge and everyone is fired up about spring ball and all. But still worth doing a message board post on at a minimum since I figured some of you would find this interesting. If you have any more questions on what was in the second report, feel free to ask me. I'm an open book on this.
P.S. Reading the findings of the second report makes me all the more glad Stanford fired Taylor. I'm just kinda disappointed it took a media report to force their hand. But at this point, that doesn't really matter. What matters is the right thing happened in the end.
