Not off to a good start

Looks like our new basketball coach should be having some of this formula for breakfast. From the Westwood-Century City Patch today:

UCLA Coach Apologizes for Sex Assault Case Comments at Iowa

New UCLA head basketball coach Steve Alford apologized Thursday for repeatedly defending one of his players at the University of Iowa in 2002 when the sophomore star was arrested and charged with sexual assault. Alford, as coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes team, made repeated public statements insisting that Pierre Pierce was innocent of the accusation. Pierce eventually pleaded to a reduced charge in a plea deal that a prosecutor on the case said was offered in large part because of the coach's persistent support of the player.

Retired Johnson County, Iowa, prosecutor J. Patrick White told the Orange County Registerthe coach's pronouncements raised the profile of the case and left the victim reluctant to testify...

Alford issued a statement through UCLA Thursday, saying he "instinctively and mistakenly came to his (Pierce's) defense before knowing all the facts." ... 

Full story at http://centurycity.patch.com/articles/ucla-coach-apologizes-for-sex-assault-case-comments-at-iowa

A bit of audio from the apology: