Tom Izzo opened up on the lows he endured during the Larry Nassar scandal at Michigan State.
Izzo and his wife, Lupe, appeared on “In Depth with Graham Bensinger” and revisited the fallout from 2018 when it was discovered that Nassar, who was the doctor for Michigan State’s and USA’s Olympics gymnastics teams, had sexually abused more than 200 women.
“That was probably the darkest time of my career,” Izzo said. “Nothing compared to those two, three years.”
Bensinger brought up how Izzo’s close friend, former NFL coach Steve Mariucci, has said that was one of the only times he ever saw Izzo second-guess himself.
“Well, he was right, he was right,” Izzo said. “I talked to him a lot, but who could you talk to? And I did one press conference, and I said a wrong word that – to this day – I wouldn’t have even thought nothing of it. It was like any word I said was gonna get attacked. And Larry Nassar – in my humble opinion – deserved everything that’s happened. And I feel for his family, I feel for people, but those survivors did not deserve that. So I didn’t know how to handle it.”
Izzo was heavily criticized — including by Aly Raisman’s mother — over a press conference that he gave in which he said, “It’s been a very difficult week for me. As a father, it’s been a difficult week. I listened to the stories of courageous women. I look at the survivors who spoke and, in all honesty, Nassar permanently damaged and changed the lives of so many of those people. I feel like it’s changed the life of all of us at Michigan State in some way, shape or form. As a father, that’s difficult to even fathom. I hope the right person was convicted.”
Asked about the lowest point of the scandal, Izzo said, “The picture on TV of me, [Mark] Dantonio, and Larry Nassar – it was probably the lowest point in my… life, just because I knew what I thought of Larry Nassar. And there I am, like we’re all buddies, the three of us … Those press conferences… they were attacks. And I thought – to this day – those attacks by certain media [were] uncalled for.”
Izzo’s wife, Lupe, was also not happy with how her husband was covered.
“I was angry,” she said. “I was angry at the media, and you’re the first person… I don’t consider you media. But, I’ve kind of lost respect for a lot of them, because they didn’t stick up for him. They were against him. I used to have them here all the time – have dinners and talk, and Tom was very open to talk to the media, but I think that whole thing kind of scrambled – everybody’s looking for a story and everyone wanted the top billing. And I just saw the ugly part of it…”
One large story that came out nationally in the wake of the Nassar scandal was a report from ESPN’s Paula Lavigne and Nicole Noren that included the revelation that a student-assistant coach on Michigan State’s basketball team remained on the job after he was “criminally charged for punching a female MSU student in the face at a bar in 2010.”
Later in the press conference, Izzo expressed the “utmost faith and respect” in then-school president Lou Anna Simon, who ultimately resigned in wake of the scandal.
“I have to say, though, that I have the utmost – the utmost – faith and respect for the leadership of our president, too, at Michigan State,” Izzo said. “That’s a woman who has dedicated over 40 years – and I’ve been here 33 with her, and I think I know what she stands for. So I hope and pray that those survivors continue to grow in their life. I hope we do everything we can to make sure that this will never happen ever again – not only at this institution, but any institution to be honest with you.”
In the interview with Bensinger, Lupe Izzo discussed her mindset on the idea that her husband might lose her job because of all of this.
“I’m a person of faith – whatever happened and God had that planned for us then OK, we find something different,” she said.