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Pelini defends decision to allow Richmond on team
Coach expresses relief that case is over
By Brian Dzenis
YOUNGSTOWN
Ma’lik Richmond is here to stay on the Youngstown State University football team, a determination reached in a negotiated settlement Monday and reaffirmed by football coach Bo Pelini on Tuesday.
Pelini spent several uninterrupted minutes of his weekly news conference defending the decision to bring Ma’lik Richmond onto the football team. These are the most extensive comments he’s made since giving an exclusive interview to The Vindicator on Aug. 3.
When Pelini was asked about the settlement, he took a pause before speaking.
The head coach started with saying he’s developed his head coaching philosophy during the past 25 years.
“For me, that philosophy has been accountability, discipline and hard work,” Pelini said. “You can criticize me for whatever you want to criticize me for, but when you look at my football teams, they’ve been disciplined. There’s few off-the-field problems, and our kids have done well academically. That’s a long-lived track record.”
Pelini – who has never been in trouble with the NCAA in his 26-year coaching career – said he views his job and that of the universities that have employed him as one that prepares kids for life beyond football, which brought him to Richmond.
“In Ma’lik’s case, he was a kid who was already on campus and in school and a number of people reached out to me. His guardians, coaches, people at the detention center in Steubenville asking, ‘Would you meet with this kid?’” Pelini said. “I didn’t know who Ma’lik Richmond was at the time.”
Richmond was one of two former Steubenville High School football players found delinquent of sexual assault in 2012. He served a year in a juvenile detention facility before returning to play his senior season at Steubenville. He went to two colleges where he did not play football before transferring to YSU in August 2016.
He walked onto the team in January.
His addition to the team sparked petitions to get him off the team. The university sent a campuswide email stating he could only be a practice player. Richmond filed a lawsuit on Sept. 13 to play, which was settled on Monday.
Pelini didn’t offer a specific time frame, but said he did get acquainted with him and learned from Richmond and his guardians about his past.
“He had an issue. A serious issue, one which there’s no real defense for,” Pelini said. “What happened, happened. But I listened to his story, talked to the young man and his guardians, and saw how remorseful he was and really came to know that here was a young man sitting in front of me that for the past four to five years had done his time and was looking to move on with his life.”
Pelini said that when the two initially met, “it wasn’t the right time,” for Richmond to join the football team.
The coach said he laid out a “four-, five-, six-point plan” that Richmond had to follow to join the team and there was no promises.
“He did it every step of the way, so here we are,” Pelini said. “I’m a father to my kids. I have a son and two daughters and my wife. I understand this is an emotional issue on both sides. It can be very emotional and I understand that, but I didn’t take this decision lightly at all.”
Pelini described the decision to have Richmond on the team as a chance to help him move on with his life.
“I think he earned that, not only by what he’s doing with us, but with what he’s done for the last four or five years,” Pelini said. “It felt like it was time that he be given the chance – without any guarantees – I never said he could start or would play one way or the other.
“I thought it would be beneficial to him and our university that he be a part of our culture and our program that’s based on hard work and accountability.”
Pelini appeared to distance himself from the actual suit, but was relieved it’s over.
“I wasn’t really involved with anything. I don’t know much about what happened as far as any litigation, but I’m glad it’s behind us. I’m glad it’s behind him, and I think we can all move forward,” Pelini said.
“I think that going forward, Ma’lik is going to represent this university the right way and in the right manner.”