When Clifton Robinson, the short but quick receiver from Naples, Florida, returned to the Auburn University football team in August 1999 after pleading guilty to contributing to the delinquency of a minor to avoid going to trial after being charged with the second-degree rape of a 15-year-old girl, first-year head coach Tommy Tuberville pledged to figure out the right punishment for him.
“Clifton is back on the team,” Tuberville said. “He and I will sit down today, and I’ll tell him that we do things right around here, so he can expect there will be some punishment. What it is, I don’t know yet.”
That punishment ended up being a mere one-game suspension from the team’s Sept. 4 season opener against Appalachian State. Auburn won 22-15.
Tuberville, now running for the Republican Senate nomination in Alabama with the endorsement of President Trump, is locked in a competitive primary against former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The winner will face Democratic incumbent Doug Jones. The Tuberville campaign declined to comment on this story.
Before Tuberville arrived from Ole Miss, his predecessor, Terry Bowden, suspended Robinson and three other players from the 1998 Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl for breaking curfew. In essence, Robinson was given the same punishment for two completely different offenses, and one of which was a crime.
Robinson, who was 20 years old at the time, was arrested and charged with second-degree rape after police were called to investigate in the middle of the night on March 31, 1999. Robinson apparently knew the teenager, who was visiting her sister at Auburn.
According to Alabama law, second-degree rape is when the accused “engages in sexual intercourse with a female less than 16 and more than 12 years old, provided; however that the (man) is at least two years older than the female.”
Following his arrest, Tuberville suspended Robinson indefinitely until there was a resolution of the charges. However, instead of risking a 2- to 20-year prison sentence and a hefty fine by going to trial, Robinson pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor that came with one year of probation and 200 hours of community service.
Tuberville is not responsible for the actions of his players. When coaching young adults, they are bound to make mistakes, some more serious than others. Oftentimes, many of them deserve a second chance. However, when it comes to disciplining a student-athlete for something as serious as sex with a minor, Tuberville at least holds some accountability. A harsh punishment like booting an offending player from the team draws a line in the sand that mistakes such as these will not be tolerated.
Clearly, Tuberville’s punishment didn’t succeed in teaching Robinson to stay out of trouble. In February 2000, Robinson was arrested on assault charges caused by a fight. In August 2004, several years after leaving Auburn, Robinson was arrested and ultimately convicted in 2006 of aggravated battery of an off-duty police officer.
While it’s obvious that no two cases are alike, Tuberville’s level of discipline cannot be observed in a vacuum. Several years before Robinson was charged with raping a 15-year-old, four Grambling State University football players were suspended and ultimately expelled after being charged with forcible rape and aggravated oral sexual battery of a 15-year-old girl. The charges were later reduced to having sex with a juvenile.
In the #MeToo era, where victims of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment have come forward to hold those in power accountable for their crimes and cover-ups, silence and certainly weak disciplinary action can be perceived as complicity.
Tuberville’s past will indelibly be linked to the case of Roy Moore, who, as a Senate candidate for the special election in 2017, faced serious, credible allegations of sexual impropriety and predatory behavior with teenage girls as young as 14 while he was in his early 30s.
If Tuberville wants to build trust with the people of Alabama and govern from a position of moral authority on what’s right and wrong, he needs to be transparent and explain his past actions.
