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Football coach Les Miles placed on leave amid misconduct allegations at LSU

LAWRENCE, Kan. (WDAF) – The University of Kansas has placed football coach Les Miles on administrative leave Friday amid allegations of misconduct during his time at LSU.

A 2013 report was released earlier Friday detailing several allegations against Miles during his time with the Tigers. Miles was investigated after two female student workers accused him of inappropriate behavior.

According to the report, Miles is accused of making multiple student employees “feel uncomfortable.” One victim accused Miles of “kissing her” and asking her to go to a hotel with him, promising he could help her career.

The exhaustive report released Friday by the Husch Blackwell law firm, offers a scathing view of the resources and attention LSU has dedicated to such complaints and has resulted in the suspensions of two senior officials in the athletic department.

While that 2013 investigation by the Taylor Porter law firm found Miles showed poor judgment, it did not find violations of law or that he had a sexual relationship with any students. Taylor Porter also concluded it could not confirm one student’s allegation that Miles kissed her while they were in the coach’s car with no one else present.

LSU’s former athletic director Joe Alleva also recommended in 2013 that Miles be fired as Tigers football coach because of his behavior with female student workers.

Alleva emailed incoming LSU President F. King Alexander, saying “he is guilty of insubordination, inappropriate behavior, putting the university, athletic department and football program at great risk. I think we have cause. I specifically told him not to text, call, or be alone with any student workers and he obviously didn’t listen.”

Husch and Blackwell interviewed multiple people who said Miles sexualized the student staff of the football program. He demanded  “pretty girls” and “blondes with big boobs,” according to the report.

KU Athletic Director Jeff Long released the following statement Friday night as he announced Miles would be placed on administrative leave:

“Today, I placed head football coach Les Miles on administrative leave as we conduct a full review to determine the appropriate next steps. We are reviewing the Husch Blackwell report released today by LSU following yesterday’s release of the Taylor Porter report. The past two days have been the first time that we have had access to either report.

Even though the allegations against him occurred at LSU, we take these matters very seriously at KU. Now that we have access to this information, we will take the coming days to fully review the material and to see if any additional information is available. I do not want to speculate on a timeline for our review because it is imperative we do our due diligence. We will be able to comment further once our review is complete.”