Both Michigan State head basketball coach Tom Izzo and head football coach Mark Dantonio are contemplating retiring "within the next few days" following an Outside the Lines report that revealed a "culture of sexual assault" within both the men's basketball and football programs at the school, according to BarstoolMSU.
BREAKING NEWS: Sources close to the Athletic Department reporting that Izzo may retire within next few days, Dantonio soon to follow.
Source: Izzo wants to finish out the season. Will be an interesting next few days.
The basketball program was previously thought of as one of the sport's model programs under Izzo, but the OTL report cited numerous cases of sexual assault and violence by former players and a former member of the coaching staff. Those cases were then minimized or covered up by the school's athletic department, according to the report. You can read more about those cases here.
Izzo is in his 23rd season as Michigan State's head coach, posting a 560–223 record while leading the Spartans to the NCAA Tournament in each of the last 20 seasons, including seven Final Four appearances and one national championship in 2000.
The Spartans are currently ranked No. 6 in the country with an 18-3 record this season. They are set to host Wisconsin at 8:00 p.m. ET tonight on FS1.
Outside the Lines also revealed that 16 football players have been involved in sexual assault or violence incidents since Dantonio took over the MSU program in 2007, and six such complaints were investigated by campus police but were never officially reported.
In a June press conference, Dantonio lied about the number of such incidents that had occurred under his watch, saying that the dismissal of four players last spring - which stemmed from two sexual assault and violence cases - was "new ground" for the program and that those kinds of incidents had "not happened previously."
Michigan State is 100–45 in 11 seasons under Dantonio, winning three Big Ten titles and one Rose Bowl in that time while earning a College Football Playoff bid in 2015.
School president Lou Anna Simon resigned on Thursday and athletic director Mark Hollis retired earlier Friday - before this OTL report came out - as a result of the Larry Nassar scandal. Nassar, who was employed by Michigan State and served as the national medical coordinator for USA Gymnastics from 1996 to 2014, was sentenced to 40-175 years in prison after more than 150 women accused Nassar of sexually abusing them.
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