University of Missouri curators deny role in ousting of star running back

Two members of the University of Missouri’ s governing board say they did not order football Coach Gary Pinkel to dismiss a star running back after the player’s 2010 arrest on sexual assault charges.

Derrick Washington was Missouri’s leading rusher as a sophomore and junior until he was kicked off the team before his senior year after the accusations by a Tiger tutor. He was convicted in in 2011 of deviate sexual assault and served four months in prison.

Washington’s mother told the authors of “The System,” a book released Tuesday, that Pinkel wanted to keep her son on the team but was overruled by Missouri’s Board of Curators.

Board chairman Wayne Goode and another curator told The Associated Press they never met with Pinkel nor discussed Washington.