Current Vanderbilt football player, former Commodore in NFL each facing separate sexual assault accusations; another former player expelled in 2019 for rape
Two Vanderbilt football players, one current and one former member of the team, have been accused of sexual assault. The accusations, involving separate incidents, were both made Saturday on social media. A report on the accusations also revealed that a former player was expelled in 2019 for rape.
Warning: The accusers’ linked posts contain graphic details
Erin Hardnett, a former sprinter and hurdler on the VU track and field team, accused former Commodores running back Khari Blasingame of rape in 2016, her freshman year on campus. Hardnett posted a Twitter thread early Saturday morning eastern time describing the incident and her injuries. Also on Saturday, she further detailed the encounter in a lengthy Medium post for The Vanderbilt Journal. The posts describe the two meeting at a party where alcohol was served and then returning to Blasingame’s dorm after the party. She writes that she told Blasingame to stop during the alleged rape. After leaving his dorm, she details going to the Vanderbilt Medical Center bleeding heavily.
Blasingame is a current member of the Tennessee Titans. His agent issued a statement on the accusation:
— Nate Litwin (@natelitwin) June 20, 2020
Current Commodore defensive back Randall Haynie is also being accused of sexual assault. Haynie’s accuser does not use her full name on Twitter. In a thread of tweets, she writes that the incident occurred in her dorm room during her freshman year when the two had agreed to watch a movie. In her accusation, she says Haynie forced himself onto her after the movie, writing that the experience was traumatizing. Haynie’s accuser writes she is entering her final year at Vanderbilt.
Per Vandy247, Vanderbilt athletics issued the following statement:
“We are deeply committed to ensuring the safety of each and every member of our Vanderbilt community. Acts of sexual assault and sexual misconduct in any context are totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Any reports of sexual misconduct are forwarded to the Title IX Office for follow-up.”
An updated Vandy247 report on the new allegations adds Title IX documents show that former outside linebacker Charles Wright was expelled from the university in February 2019 for raping team equipment manager Regan Siems in February 2018. Siems provided the Title IX documents to Vandy247.
Say it ain’t so!!!!!!
If they are found guilty, they deserve every minute of their sentence!
I have numerous Vanderbilt sports fan friends that are all mad at me at the present time because I don’t hold back speaking reality as opposed to their perceived world through gold-colored glasses.
Today, I have three emails from three different long-time Commodore fans telling me they can see clearly now, and they are finished with Vanderbilt athletics. One has been going to football and basketball games since Don Orr was the quarterback of the football team and Al Rochelle was the point guard on the basketball team.
Vanderbilt cannot afford to lose any of their dozens of remaining fans. It’s time the league get serious about replacing them with a team like Virginia Tech or Virginia, where they can bring in the Metro DC market without losing the Nashville market, as Vanderbilt isn’t even one of the top three followed college teams in the Music City. There are more Auburn fans here than Commodore fans, and Middle Tennessee State and Tennessee have many times more fans. As great as their baseball team has been, the AAA Sounds in the Pacific Coast League outdraw them by more than 2 to 1.
Vanderbilt seriously should consider eliminating scholarship athletics altogether. They should join their former private school and SEC rival Sewanee and become D3, where their 300-400 fans from their last home game after free tickets were given away was less than 1/4 the number of fans that showed up at Sewanee’s home finale at Hardee-McGee Field for a team that went 0-10. Of course, Vanderbilt doesn’t have Jim Oliver’s Smokehouse 10 minutes away from the stadium.
Agreed….Vandy doesn’t really belong in the SEC.
You’re right Vandy should leave the SEC so another conference can win Nattys in baseball. Since SEC fans aren’t appreciative of Vandy brining Nattys, especially UT, who can’t win Nattys in anything. LH61, you are a Vandy hater who posts only on negative articles about them. Vandy is a charter team of the SEC, they aren’t going anywhere. They suck in football, basketball but kick butt in baseball and golf. So shut up and get out out of here.
I had a lengthy rebuttal to the above post, but I see it has been censored on this forum.
I won’t try to re-write it, but one point was:
“Is charter member Sewanee still in the SEC? While technically your statement is correct, in reality the SEC is a divorce from the Southern Conference. When the SoCon formed 100 years ago, Vanderbilt was not one of the schools asked to join. They remained in the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.”
I also discussed at length the process by which Vanderbilt attempted to leave the SEC in the early 1960’s, and only failed to happen for reasons Vanderbilt had no control of.
There wasn’t one word of vulgarity or anything deserving of censorship. But, I just wanted to know that I respectfully read your post and offered a civil rebuttal.
It’s not like Vandy wins all the baseball NC’s. Baseball also brings no money into the conference. Vandy also offers over twice as many baseball scholarships than any other school in the conference. That surely helps. They do accept tens of millions of dollars from the conference football media rights deal while bringing nothing to the table in football. That’s a pretty sweet deal for Vandy. Academics also mean little to nothing in a sports conference. Losing Vandy would not hurt the conference at all, but I’m not advocating that the SEC look to throw them out. It would be nice if Vandy worked a little harder to be competitive in football though.
Excellent post LH61. I believe everyone in this group of bloggers as well as those in the SEC agrees Vandy needs a serious look at the Athletic Dept as a whole. The only problem is: They’re such a prestigious educational institution, if they departed, wherever they land, that conference’s stock will rise from academics as well as their baseball program.
Similar eyebrow raising questions are constantly asked here in the Tri-State Area about Rutgers (B1G). They’re there for marketing and they add a tremendous amount of market value to the B1G. Fortunately, there hasn’t been any scandals that have rocked the conference (that I know of).
If Vandy doesn’t get their act together, that prestige that they sell the 1300+ SAT scorers, won’t mean anything.
These are some serious accusations. We saw what happened to the Baylors, Louisville (Basketball), Penn States.. Hopefully they will clean up their internal act before Coach Mason (regardless of how hard he competes) loses his coaching career over a few kids that should have known better.
This isn’t the first time for Vanderbilt and sexual assaults. Most people probably are familiar with the 4 arrested teammates from the James Franklin era, and how they used a plastic water bottle to violate a coed that was given a “Mickey” to make her easy to manipulate as well as making her not remember. Had it not been for numerous security cams, and the fact that these guys were morons and recorded it on their cell phones, they may have gotten away with it.
The fact that this has apparently been known for some time, and nothing was done by personnel in the know at Vanderbilt, means that, in at least one respect, Vanderbilt tries to act like the rest of the league. They are obviously SEC quality in attempted felonious cover-ups.
Wow..I didn’t know..Smh