MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Tynice Martin will make her season debut Sunday in Beckley when West Virginia meets Radford in what will serve as little more than another early-season tune-up for a WVU team that is in desperate need of more time to work out the kinks.
There is so much more to this storyline, because Martin is not coming off a preseason injury, rather she is coming off an indefinite suspension for a violation of team rules.
That violation: Martin pleaded no contest last week as part of plea bargain that lowered a domestic battery charge to battery.
Under the agreement, Martin will serve one year probation and will serve 50 hours of community service and she had to donate $20 to the Monongalia County Victim’s Assistance Program.
What we can also tell you is the school’s Title IX department conducted its own investigation under the Student Code of Conduct and that investigation was concluded and dropped.
It was the Title IX investigation that brought the initial suspension, which is the standard procedure during any Title IX investigation against any college athlete accused of a domestic crime.
Full disclosure here: I’m all in favor of Martin playing with the Mountaineers. I hope she scores 50 on Sunday and eventually leads the Mountaineers back to the NCAA tournament.
I say that, because there are other details about this case that did not come up during the plea hearing. They can’t be printed here, either, for legal purposes.
Beyond all of that. This story is just not about Tynice Martin.
Her story is just a minuscule piece to what has become a national hot-button issue with athletes and violence towards women.
You could quickly begin with the Baylor football program that underwent enough Title IX sexual assault and domestic violence issues that head coach Art Briles was fired in 2016. You could then go more recently and look at the case of former Pittsburgh Steelers’ receiver Antonio Brown, who is being investigated for a number of claims of sexual and domestic assaults.
Martin doesn’t deserve to have her situation lumped into all of that. The fact that the court of public opinion has done just that to a certain degree is unfortunate.
This is where school officials at WVU are supposed to step in and do their damndest to help clear the air, make a stand to back Martin — other than simply reinstating her — and express its point of view that her situation was different than what is being played out nationally.
Many from the outside looking in will think Martin’s status as a star player is the only reason she’s still on the team. The senior guard could become the school’s all-time leading scorer before the end of this season.
If Martin had just been a regular student at WVU, would she still be permitted to be on campus and enrolled at the school?
These are the issues I wanted to discuss with WVU head coach Mike Carey, but was basically told he was not going to be permitted to speak on the subject.
When reached by text message Tuesday morning by The Dominion Post, WVU athletic director Shane Lyons texted back, “… this situation has run through the legal and University Student Code of Conduct process. There is nothing more for me to say.”
That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of support for a kid who probably needs as much support as humanly possible at the moment.
Instead of coming out and saying Martin deserves to still be on the team for reasons A, B and C, WVU chose to go with the old-fashioned “no comment,” which is undoubtedly its right to do.
It doesn’t help clear the air for those who have their doubts on the situation. It certainly won’t change any negative opinions that are floating around on social media.
Martin deserves better than that. She deserves public support rather than simply waiting for a few weeks for the discussion to become yesterday’s news.
For a lot of cases involving college athletes, that may be a good strategy. This is not one of them. Not in the climate of today’s sports world. Martin simply deserves more.
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