Michigan State suspended football coach Mel Tucker without pay on Sunday, less than 24 hours after allegations became public in a USA Today report that he sexually harassed activist and rape survivor Brenda Tracy during a phone call last year.

University President Teresa K Woodruff and athletic director Alan Haller announced the suspension pending the results of an outside investigation into the allegations.

Tracy became friends with Tucker over her advocacy work, but that relationship took a turn in April 2022 when Tucker masturbated during a phone call with her, according to USA Today.

“The idea that someone could know me and say they understand my trauma but then re-inflict that trauma on me is so disgusting to me, it’s hard for me to even wrap my mind around it,” Tracy told the newspaper. “It’s like he sought me out just to betray me.”

Tucker acknowledged to investigators last spring that he masturbated during the phone call with Tracy, but he said they had consensual “phone sex.”

The 51-year-old Tucker is married and has two children.

“Ms Tracy’s distortion of our mutually consensual and intimate relationship into allegations of sexual exploitation has really affected me,” Tucker wrote in a March 22 letter to the Title IX investigator. “I am not proud of my judgment and I am having difficulty forgiving myself for getting into this situation, but I did not engage in misconduct by any definition.”

The university hired a Title IX attorney to investigate Tracy’s complaint and the investigation concluded on July 25. A hearing is scheduled for the week of Oct. 5 determine if Tucker violated the school’s sexual harassment and exploitation policy.

When the investigative report was finished, Tucker was told not to have contact with Tracy and that Haller would increase his oversight of him and the programme, Haller said at a news conference Sunday evening.

Secondary coach Harlon Barnett will serve as the team’s interim coach and former coach Mark Dantonio was named associate head coach while Tucker awaits his fate with the programme.

Tucker is in the third year of a $95 million, 10-year contract and if he is fired for cause, the school would not have to pay him what’s remaining on his deal.

Michigan State is not far removed from another sexual misconduct scandal, one involving former sports doctor Larry Nassar. He was sentenced in 2018 to 40 to 175 years in prison after he admitted to molesting some of the nation’s top gymnasts for years under the guise of medical treatment. He was accused of sexually assaulting hundreds of women and girls.

– AP