BYU’s Honor Code has long been a matter of contention and controversy and control at the school, especially as it’s been applied and in some cases not applied to football and basketball players.
Jake Retzlaff anticipates he is about to be the latest example.
The senior quarterback expects to be suspended for seven games, as The Salt Lake Tribune reported on Sunday, thereby putting his final year at BYU in jeopardy. He might not stick around under those circumstances. A recent civil lawsuit filed by a woman claiming Retzlaff sexually assaulted her was resolved Monday morning after a judge signed a motion for dismissal that had been agreed to by both sides.
Retzlaff has said through his lawyer that he did not sexually assault the woman, claiming instead that they had “consensual” sex. Even with his case closed, BYU’s Honor Code administrators, as he expects, have work to do. The situation is complicated further by the quarterback’s NIL deal with the Cougars, which is believed to be in excess of $1 million. One would suspect BYU has a clause in such NIL deals that gives it an escape hatch if an athlete violates its behavioral code, which prohibits, among other things, sex outside of marriage.
The fact that the allegations against Retzlaff and his response have gone public the way they have is no small factor in the consequences he’ll face from the school. In more than a few so-called serious Honor Code violations in the past, in the case of an athlete, if the violation shades toward being less than private, the perpetrator feels the full force of the code.
Whether that’s simply because BYU doesn’t want its reputation to be sullied, doesn’t want to appear to be hypocritical all out in full view, is up to outside observers to decide.
(Kim Raff | The New York Times) The Brigham Young University campus in Provo on July 20, 2023.
But here’s where the application of the Honor Code gets complicated. Unmarried athletes at BYU — and other students, too — are having sex. Not all of them, not most of them, but more than a scattered handful. Some who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, BYU’s owner and operator, go to their ecclesiastical leaders — bishops — to get those personal indiscretions, according to their faith, handled. Sometimes those bishops pass the information they’ve received on to Honor Code administrators and sometimes they don’t, preferring to address the issue the way bishops in wards across the rest of the church are supposed to address them — quietly, in confidentiality.
How do I know this? I’ve asked around. A number of bishops I’ve talked with said in their entire time in their church roles at BYU, they never contacted the Honor Code folks, always keeping their conversations and confessions private. One said he only informed administrators once, and in that case he sensed the violator was acting as a predator.
So who gets reported and who doesn’t? Who faces consequences beyond those quietly discussed behind closed doors between a bishop and his congregant and who doesn’t?
The answer might be unsatisfying to some: It depends.
It depends on the stance of the bishop. It depends on the spiritual mindset of the athlete/student. It depends on the attitude of administrators when and if they’re made aware. It depends on whether an athlete/student and others involved in sexual encounters come forward. There have been cases where an athlete has been treated differently than the other person with whom said athlete had sex. And it depends on, as mentioned, how many people on the outside know about what’s taken place, how public the encounter has become. BYU cares deeply about the way it is perceived.
That’s a whole lot of depending ons, particularly when one considers what’s at stake for the individuals involved. In some situations, a student is kicked out of school. In some, the student is suspended. In some, nothing at all happens.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) LaVell Edwards Stadium, BYU football in Provo on Saturday August 31, 2024.
I’ve discussed the conundrum BYU puts itself in on account of its extra layer of Honor Code rules, rules that go beyond what its founding church requires, with many athletes at the school. Most of them want and hope to follow the code, to live “chaste” lives, but also have recognized that they — and their teammates — are human. They sometimes make mistakes, but they haven’t been eager to face harsh penalties for those missteps. If so inclined, they’d rather take care of their business in private, with a church leader, keeping their indiscretions between themselves, their bishops and their God. A few athletes have confided that they never really intended to follow the code, and felt little guilt in defying it, if not mocking it.
Some have been outright angry at the actions and judgments of certain administrators, considering their Honor code decisions unfair at best and un-Christian at the other end. Hardcore types simply point at the code and — dismissing the humanity of it all — declare, “You sign the deal, you have to live by it.”
Retzlaff’s ultimate fate, at least on the civil side of the law, will be handled by the court, has now been decided. Here’s to hoping that justice was served.
His fate at BYU will be handled sooner by … BYU. If he is suspended for seven games, he’ll have his own decision to make. If his football career at BYU is over, notable it is that the school that righteously cheered and championed him when he threw all those touchdown passes last season and won all those games will all but show him the door to unrighteous infamy. All out in the open, the code will, it must, show its teeth.
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