Brenda Tracy, Rape Survivor, Shared Her Story With Texas A&M Athletes and Staff

Brenda Tracy, a rape survivor and human rights advocate, recently had the opportunity to share her story and speak with Texas A&M coaches, administrators, and student athletes.

Brenda Tracy, an Oregon native,  has shared her horrific and human story of sexual assault with more than 15 different colleges and universities around the United States. Her most recent stop was in College Station where she spoke to the majority of the Aggie student athlete population and a number of coaches, administrators and staff. She came away encouraged that her message had been received and and would be carried on.

“I’m really excited to see what could happen on this campus after today,” Tracy said. “The idea that so many people would show up speaks volumes about how serious Texas A&M is taking this issue.”

In her estimate, over 100 coaches, administrators and staff attended a morning question and answer session. Later that same day, around 600 student athletes from all A&M sports in the evening session.

Afterwards, many Aggie athletes took to social media with support for Brenda and her message. That included baseball player Joel Davis, basketball players Robert Williams and Eric Villa, as well as football players Kemah Siverand and Jake Hubenak.

“That’s the biggest crowd I’ve had so far,” Tracy said. “I felt like the attitude was we take this very seriously and we want to get involved and we want to figure out how we can change things on our campus and be a leader.”

The mother of two began by telling her story. She was raped by four men, including two that were players for the Oregon State football team at the time. In addition to being raped, Tracy suffered through a number of issues relating to the prosecution of her case. Most notably, the rape kit from her assault was destroyed well before the statute of limitations had elapsed.

Now, she often speaks and shares her story with college football programs and athletic departments. Her goal? To raise awareness and encouraging everyone to get involved.

Where is Texas A&M on this Issue?

“I got a lot of good feedback tonight from the athletes from them wanting to do more things – awareness raising things,” Tracy said. “It feels like when I was at SMU. SMU was making a commitment to take this a step further and I feel like that is going to happen here at Texas A&M too.”

The Texas A&M football program has not been rocked with rape scandals that have plagued other schools like Oregon State and Baylor. Even still, it still has some work to do. In July the program hosted a clinic for women that included what was head coach Kevin Sumlin later called, “inappropriate conduct [and] degrading comments towards women . . . regardless of intent.” Two coaches, Jim Turner and Jeff Banks, were suspended without pay for two weeks and required to serve 20 hours of community service for their roles.

“The presentation was inappropriate and I was surprised no one else looked at it before it was put up on the screen,” Tracy said of the incident. “That being said, I was happy to see that the coaches were sanctioned immediately.”