Michigan State has suspended head football coach Mel Tucker without pay amid an ongoing sexual harassment investigation, the Spartans' athletic director confirmed Sunday.
has suspended head football coach Mel Tucker without pay amid an ongoing sexual harassment investigation, athletic director Alan Haller said Sunday. Secondary coach Harlon Barnett is taking over as acting head coach, and longtime Spartans head coach Mark Dantonio will return to the program as an associate head coach to help Barnett, Haller said.
The school hired an outside Title IX attorney to investigate Tracy’s complaint and the investigation concluded in July, according to the USA Today report. A hearing is scheduled for Oct. 5-6 to determine if Tucker violated the school’s sexual harassment and exploitation policy, the newspaper reported.
"The idea that someone could know me and say they understand my trauma but then re-inflict that trauma on me is so disgusting to me, it’s hard for me to even wrap my mind around it," Tracy told the newspaper."It’s like he sought me out just to betray me." The Spartans beat Richmond on Saturday to improve to 2-0 in Tucker’s fourth season with the school. Tucker is one of college football’s highest paid coaches. He is 20-14 in three-plus seasons at Michigan State, which hired him after he went 5-7 in one year atShortly after Dantonio retired in February 2020, then-athletic director Bill Beekman hired Tucker, who was a graduate assistant at Michigan State for Nick Saban.