Caught on tape

As Joe Mixon departs OU, recently released video leaves questions lingering about the University’s handling of Amelia Molitor’s assault

One punch—that’s all it took. 

It’s clear in the video: Joe Mixon, 18 and an incoming Sooners tailback, exchanges words with OU junior Amelia Molitor at Pickleman’s Gourmet Café in Norman. She pushes him. He flexes at her. She slaps him. Then he unleashes a lightning-fast punch with his right hand, the force of which sends her careening into the corner of the table on her way to the floor.

At the time, the security footage from the incident was viewed only by a small number of journalists law enforcement and university officials.

For the charge of misdemeanor assault, Mixon entered an Alford plea (acknowledging the evidence against him while maintaining his innocence) and received a one-year deferred sentence and 100 hours of community service. 

Mixon was also redshirted, essentially given an unofficial yearlong suspension from the team. He returned as a sophomore, the 2015 season, during which he dominated the field and proved himself to be the most talented recruit the Sooners had landed since DeMarco Murray. 

The traits he possesses as an offensive football player threaten to change the position of running back forever. At 226 pounds, he’s bigger than former Sooner great Adrian Peterson. At 6-foot-1 with arms and legs that look inflated with a pump, he could terrorize corner backs as an NFL wide out. He’s a threat to take every carry, every catch, every kickoff return to the end zone.

With his blend of size, speed, finesse, power and vision for the game, it’s easy to see him as the next evolution of running back—like Le’Veon Bell, who became the first player in NFL history to average 100 yards rushing and 50 yards receiving per game for an entire season. In 2016, as a redshirt sophomore, Mixon averaged 106 yards rushing and 45 yards receiving per game.

Last month, two-and-a-half years after the encounter with Molitor, as Mixon prepared to play his last game with the Sooners before entering the NFL draft, security video of the incident at Pickleman’s was finally made public after the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters sued the city of Norman for its release. 

“The punch is actually a lot worse than I expected it to be,” OU student Kevin Calvillo told KFOR. “It was a lot more vicious.”

Indeed, Mixon broke four bones in Molitor’s face. She had to have extensive facial reconstructive surgery which left her jaw wired shut and her face numb for six months.

After the encounter, Molitor became the villainess to many OU football fans who rushed to Mixon’s defense. She deactivated her Facebook. She removed herself from Twitter. She was inundated with phone calls and messages from reporters who wanted to pursue the story and friends who wanted to eat up the gossip.

She quit her job as a server at Louie’s on Campus Corner. She suffered panic attacks. Message board posters, the folks who remind us that fan is short for fanatic, called her vicious names.

“I thought that every single person who looked at me knew me and hated me,” she told The Oklahoman.

Since the release of the video in December and Mixon’s subsequent apology, questions about the university’s handling of the assault remain. 

“There was never any closure on the incident at all,” said Carey Murdock, SoonerScoop.com publisher and WWLS radio host. “It was kinda like you get a divorce from somebody and you never speak again.”

It’s not just how the university and its athletic department mishandled Mixon’s situation. It’s that Mixon’s legal counsel was so wary of anything he said being used against him in civil litigation that his attorneys and OU’s media relations chose to lock him away from public view until the tape was released. 

After a year suspended from the team, Mixon returned in 2015 to become one half of the most dominant backfield in college football. And still OU’s media relations department and his attorneys would not allow him to speak with reporters of any stripe.

“Part of me is sad that he’s such a one-dimensional figure,” said Tulsa World sports columnist Guerin Emig, “because of the cocoon (OU) put around him. I just don’t believe he can be that person.”

“Joe, he’s a human being,” OU safety Steven Parker told the World. “People look at him as a monster. He’s not that at all.”

With cursory punishments from the university that allowed him to stay in school and resume his role on the field after the suspension, Mixon’s behavior was essentially excused by football coach Bob Stoops, athletic director Joe Castiglione and university president David Boren. 

Some speculate that those additional punishments were mostly about the university saving face, and one has to wonder if Mixon avoided expulsion only because of his exceptional talent as a player.

If Mixon had not been the truly generational talent he is, would Stoops have cared to give him a second chance? Would Castiglione have backed Stoops’ decision to hold onto him? Would Boren have allowed Mixon to remain a scholarship athlete without technically being an athlete—removed from the team for a full year—if it was not impressed upon him the kind of prodigy the program would lose?

He was not the first Stoops had tried to rehabilitate. There’s a litany of players who’ve passed through OU who have picked up arrests for public intoxication, possession of marijuana and worse.

Former wide out Ryan Broyles stole gas from the pump and was allowed a second chance. Former wide out Jaz Reynolds and safety Quentin Hayes made enough small mistakes to earn suspensions from the program but were later allowed to rejoin it and flourished. Prior to Mixon’s assault, former defensive tackle Dusty Dvoracek committed the most violent public offense associated with Stoops’ program when he violently beat a man, putting him in ICU. 

“It may be wrong in some eyes to give a guy an opportunity to come back,” Stoops said at a press conference days after Mixon’s attorney released the video. “I think two-and-a-half years ago, some here, some viewed the tape locally and thought it was fair or appropriate to some degree. It was a significant penalty and discipline. Two-and-half years later, it’s fair to say it isn’t enough.”

A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Mixon was 17 at the time of the assault and that the Pickleman's security footage was released in the wake of Amelia Molitor's civil suit, rather than the OAB's lawsuit. We regret the errors. 

For more from R.J., read Bottom Line.