"This was ... "
The pause on the other end of my phone conversation with a high-ranking Texas official on Tuesday night didn't feel like it lasted forever as much as it felt soaked in frustration, sadness and bewilderment.
"Damnit, Ketch, this was so damn preventable."
In that single sentence, this official used the exact same word that two other sources within the previous two hours had used. If fact, I began to wonder if I had mentioned the word before he did, thus planting it in his mind because, damnit, he said the same thing the others had said. Literally the exact same word.
"Preventable."
After staring at the screen for about a half hour and not being able to decide how exactly to approach writing all of the things that will come next, I've decided it's probably best to start with what's already happened in an effort to provide full context to the situation that exists.
In the week leading up to the July 13 announcement from new Texas president Jay Hartzell that a wide range of diversity initiatives had been created in direct response to the June 12 letter that was written by a group of black Texas athletes, an extreme amount of work went into making sure that all the i's were dotted and all of the t's were crossed.
Part of the vetting included a meeting with Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte and members of the Texas football team, with the goal of presenting the initiatives to the players and securing commitments from the players that they were satisfied with the grand nature of a proposal that included sweeping changes to the entire structure within the university system on multiple fronts.
"Go back and look at what came out of the meeting," another high-ranking Texas official told me. "The players were satisfied. They loved what we did and it was reflected by their comments.
"Everyone was told that it was handled. Everything was 'we were good'. That's what we were told."
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