Michigan State head coach Mel Tucker has risked his job and potentially $80 million by having phone s*x with a rape survivor who he had spoken to his team about consent.
This is an incredible case of he said/she said where it is impossible to really know who is telling the truth.
In 2023, even if Tucker is telling the truth it is highly unlikely he will be able to survive this and keep his job. People don’t look at these cases logically, they immediately take a side and then scream at anyone who disagrees.
The accused is Mel Tucker, the head football coach at Michigan State University and one of the highest paid coaches in all of sports. Accusing him is Brenda Tracy, a rape survivor who has made educating athletes about sexual violence her life’s work.
But their relationship was upended during a phone call on April 28, 2022, Tracy says in a complaint she filed with the university’s Title IX office in December that remains under investigation.
In his statements to the Title IX investigator, Tucker acknowledged masturbating on the call but said Tracy grossly mischaracterized the episode. According to him, they had consensual “phone sex.”
“Ms. Tracy’s distortion of our mutually consensual and intimate relationship into allegations of sexual exploitation has really affected me,” Tucker wrote in a March 22 letter to the investigator.
and talked openly about it.
They frequently made flirtatious comments about each other’s looks and bodies, Tucker said. Tracy told him she wanted a “sugar daddy” who would pay her a monthly amount to be his girlfriend, he said, and that she would be “all over” him if he wasn’t married.
Tucker said they had acknowledged their mutual desire for a romance but agreed it would be “too messy” because of his marriage and the physical distance between them.
By contrast, Tracy told the investigator that Tucker’s romantic interest in her was entirely one-sided. She said she came to feel he was less interested in her cause than in her.
Tucker messaged her photos of herself that he had found on her Instagram page, making comments such as, “This is the one,” or complimenting her eyes, Tracy said. Tucker also sent her two gifts – a pair of Jordans and $200 in cash through Venmo – and donated $2,500 to her nonprofit.
Once, Tucker called Tracy via FaceTime. He was in bed, shirtless. He talked about his unhappy marriage, describing himself as “more or less single.” Then, during a Nov. 9, 2021, call, she said he asked her, “If I wasn’t a football coach and if I wasn’t married, would you date me?”
Tracy said she responded that she would not because they worked together – one of several times she recalled trying to set boundaries. She said she made clear to Tucker on a Dec. 1 call that they would only be friends, and he seemed to agree.
Tracy was in her home office in Oregon. Tucker, who was in a hotel in Florida, called her at 12:39 a.m. EST, phone records show. The call lasted 36 minutes.
According to Tucker, he became aroused when Tracy made a comment about needing to hit the gym more to look better without clothes on. They then discussed how having phone sex could complicate their relationship, he said, but Tracy suggested once would be harmless and he agreed.
“Unequivocally, there’s no doubt about it,” Tucker told the investigator, case documents show. “She was the one who said we’ll do it.”
Tracy denies all of that. The call started off normal, she said. But when she sent Tucker a photo of them together from the spring game, she said he responded by commenting on her buttocks and calling himself an “ass man.”
She remembered Tucker’s voice getting deeper and weirder as he continued talking about her buttocks. She asked him what he was doing, and he said he had a “hard dick” and was touching himself.
“You’re touching yourself?” Tracy asked, according to the investigation report. Tucker responded, “Yes.”
Clearly, someone is lying.
The question begs is who? Tucker has a lot of motives to lie. He is married and can lose $80 million. Tracy’s motivation, according to Tucker, is revenge for Tucker cutting her off and the fact she knows in 2023 that even an allegation can ruin a career, whether true or not.
Flip the page for more photos of Tracy.