NMSU coach to participate in campaign meant to raise awareness about sexual assault
New Mexico State University is planning to use Chris Jan’s controversial past as a way to raise awareness of sexual assault.
The university announced Monday that Chris Jans will replace Paul Weir as the men’s new head basketball coach.
Jans, who was the head coach at Bowling Green, was fired after video surfaced of him allegedly touching a woman on the backside while at a bar. Jans, who is married, admitted to not knowing the woman and says he has learned for the incident.
Tuesday NMSU President Garrey Carruthers told ABC-7 Jans will now take part in the “It’s on Us” campaign. It’s a campus initiative that works towards creating a safe climate to reduce sexual assaults.
“I just had our person in this morning and I said I want you to start with him, I want you to start a program here to make sure we all have an understanding of what can happen to an institution, to the people involved, the woman involved,” Carruthers said. “You need to understand the consequences of this and we need to convince people that’s something he’d want to do and he said great we’ll go see him and he’s willing to do it.”
Carruthers also said the university went through an extensive vetting process before hiring Jans.
“I brought in 6 or 7 senior women here and showed them the tape and said, ok what do you think?” Carruthers said. “is that a disqualifier or not? And they said no it was not.”
