The defense gatherers after the jury was read the charges against Brandon Vandenburg and Cory Batey on Jan. 27, 2015 in Nashville. Vandenburg and Batey, two former Vanderbilt football players, are each charged with five counts of aggravated rape and two counts of aggravated sexual battery.The details of what took place between four Vanderbilt football players and a heavily inebriated, unconscious coed on June 23, 2013, are probably too graphic and disturbing to be discussed on the Sports page of a family newspaper.
But the reasons behind the guilty verdict regarding two of those players -- the other two are still awaiting trial -- need to be discussed at length inside every home, locker room, secondary school, college and work environment across this great nation.
And the sooner the better.
Because discussing those guilty verdicts on aggravated rape and aggravated sexual battery may be the only way to lessen such disgusting, nauseating, criminal behavior in the future.
Or as Davidson County District Attorney Glenn Funk said Tuesday following those verdicts against former Vanderbilt players and students Brandon Vandenburg and Cory Batey: "Sexual violence against women is wrong. Don't blame the culture. Don't blame alcohol. Don't blame the victim."
That was the players' defense, of course. Blame everyone and everything but themselves. That's almost always the defense. Whether it's high school kids in Calhoun, Ga. Or college athletes at Vanderbilt and Tennessee. Or professionals across the globe.
To borrow a line from Davidson County Deputy District Attorney Tom Thurman during his closing arguments: "That's the culture that you really saw here. Their mindset that they can get away with anything."
But this time the jury didn't let them. Quite possibly because the defendants had mindlessly filmed much of their despicable behavior on their cell phones, it took the jury but three hours to find them guilty. On March 6, a judge will sentence them to prison, quite possibly for decades.
Replied University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football coach Russ Huesman on Wednesday, when asked what his Mocs should learn from this case: "One decision you make can cost you your life."
Not that it's often one bad decision in a lifetime of good ones. As Thurman noted, (the defendants) mindset is that they can get away with anything.
And that's not necessarily on former Vanderbilt coach and current Penn State coach James Franklin and his staff. It's on those players' parents. On their elementary, junior high and high school teachers and coaches. On older siblings, if they had any.
It's on anyone and everyone who refuses or fumbles the chance to educate today's youth about the difference between right and wrong. It's not that hard. You can usually feel it in your gut, especially the really bad stuff. Any sort of violence -- sexual or otherwise -- should give one pause 100 percent of the time.
Even then, correctly noted Huesman: "Kids will make terrible, terrible decisions."
These players certainly did. Admittedly high on drugs, booze or both -- including the victim -- these athletes allowed Right to get pulverized by Wrong. For proof, consider this single quote from Thurman: "I don't know how culture can be blamed for someone raping, assaulting and urinating on a victim who's unconscious."
And that's perhaps the closest thing to a G-rated statement in the entire trial.
For Huesman, the father of two teenage daughters and two sons, including Jacob -- the reigning two-time Southern Conference offensive player of the year -- it is a particularly troubling story.
"I hope people will learn a valuable lesson from this," he said. "Every year at the start of fall practice we bring in people to speak about this subject, about how you treat a woman. I'm sure Vanderbilt coaches do the same. But this time, as soon as we get off the road from recruiting after this week, I think this case is something we need to immediately bring up with our team."
It needs to be brought up far more than it is in all walks of life. Brought up to athletes and non-athletes. To students and non-students. To men and women. To all boys and girls at the onset of puberty. And then it needs to be brought up again and again, given that a recent Justice Department study showed that 80 percent of campus rapes went unreported between 1995 and 2013, compared to 67 percent in the general population.
Consider this single sentence from an ESPN.com story on the verdict: "Despite the photos and video, and witnesses seeing the woman unconscious and at least partially naked in a dorm hallway, no one reported it."
Think about that. Witnesses found an unconcious, partially naked woman in a dorm hallway and not a single person reported it.
We have met the enemy and he is us.
Not that all the lessons to be learned here should focus on the defendants. Whatever the woman's rights, it's never a smart thing to pass out from alcohol or drugs, even if you're safely home alone.
But that doesn't mean such foolish behavior should ever, ever lead to what happened to this victim. And maybe this will be the crime that reverses such deplorable decisions.
"This case gives our entire community an opportunity to talk to each other and to our children, especially to our boys, about the way we treat women, both with our actions and with our words," DA Funk said afterward. "No one deserves to be violated."
No one. Ever.
Or as this victim _ who was neuroscience and economics major at the time of the attack _ told the public through a prepared statement: "I want to remind other victims of sexual violence: You are not alone. You are not to blame."
Instead, that blame should fall to anyone and everyone who blames everyone and everything but the defendants for their evil actions.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.