Just When You Think Baylor Football Has Done It All, Their Associate AD Assaults A Reporter

LBS- A Baylor athletic department employee was arrested earlier this month for assaulting a sports writer following a game, according to a new report.

KWTX reports that Heath Nielsen, who is an associate athletic director at Baylor, is free on bond after being arrested for misdemeanor assault following the Bears’ loss to TCU on Nov. 5. Nielsen is accused of walking up to a sports writer who was taking a photo of a player, trying to knock the phone out of the writer’s hand, and then choking the writer. 

“About that time they came in and tomahawk-chopped, trying to knock the phone that I had taken the picture with out of my hand. They were unsuccessful in trying to do that, and when they couldn’t do that they came up and they grabbed my throat, and I pulled back. Whenever I looked up I saw that it was Heath Nielsen,” James McBride, the victim, said in a police affidavit. 

Nielsen has worked at Baylor since 2000. He was in the media relations and communications departments before assuming his current position in 2012. 



So, we are working under the assumption that the 'Death Penalty' is no longer something that exists in college athletics, right? I never heard anyone with authority offer a formal retraction of it, but since Baylor football is still a thing I am just going to assume that there's no crime they can collectively commit that's punishable by (at least temporary) execution. It's gotten to the point where they are basically summoning Kavorkian bi-weekly to pull the plug on their program and put it out of it's misery.  We are talking about a former media relations member from the communications department karate chopping a reporter's phone out of his hand before trying to dispose of him with a Mortal Kombat-esque fatality.  Someone that is familiar with keeping his employer out of the negative news cycle was just responsible for an inexplicable headline at the worst possible time. If that's not a sign that Baylor football is laying in bathtub asking to have a toaster dropped in then I don't know what is. 

It's not just the players raping and pillaging the entire student body. It's not just the terminated President or the disgraced former Head Coach who both enabled such widespread felonious behavior. It's not just the fans that accepted it and even fought back against the ensuing - and relatively light - punishments. It's not even just the Associate AD that can't handle a volatile situation without wrapping his hands around a journalist's neck. Everything that has come anywhere near Baylor football has become infected by it. That's why we just need to burn it at the stake for the sake of those that are at risk of coming into contact with any of it's carriers. After all, anything that can garner this much adverse national news coverage in Waco, Texas needs to be cremated ASAP.