… that you realize just how beautiful life at big-time sports schools like the University of Florida is. Hushing up the beatings that players mete out around campus is of course business as usual at such places, and only when one of your players goes on, a few years later, to be charged with murder (I wonder if that would have happened if instead of hushing up the guy’s early beatings, the university had taken the behavior seriously… But… you know… he was an important part of the team’s winning record, and there’s a lot of money riding on that record…) do you run the risk of news organizations digging up the hushing up…
Tim Tebow attempted to keep Aaron Hernandez out of trouble during a 2007 bar squabble while both were playing at the University of Florida, but not even the mild-mannered, Bible-toting quarterback could keep the hot-headed tight end from slugging a Gainesville, Fla., restaurant manager and puncturing his ear drum.
Still, after Tebow’s efforts failed, it appears the school or football program might have gotten Hernandez off the hook by reaching a settlement with the manager to keep him from pursuing charges, according to a supplemental investigation report on the altercation obtained by USA TODAY Sports.
Once you’ve learned, courtesy of the University of Florida, that you can get away with breaking someone’s ear drum because he asked you to pay for drinks you bought at his bar, I guess you figure you can get away with anything.
One more glorious tale of collegiate life in America.
July 3rd, 2013 at 3:21PM
You don’t have winning football programs by recruiting physics majors or language scholars, you win with people who like hurting other people, namely psychopaths. And it takes an administration without principles to train psychopaths to be great CFB players.
July 3rd, 2013 at 4:55PM
charlie: Now that you mention it, I’ve wondered more than once, following big-time university football, whether recruiters do in fact have a preference for, as you say, “people who like hurting other people.” Not sure I’d go as far as psychopaths, but yeah, the general logic of the thing would seem (actually pretty obviously?) to be that you want most of your recruits (maybe not quarterback or kicker) to be pretty sadistic, pretty hopped up, pretty inclined toward fighting people pretty much all of the time. I mean, as with hockey, much of which seems also to be about beating the shit out of people, that’s kind of key to the game…
July 3rd, 2013 at 6:54PM
it might be more comforting if they were sociopaths and not just spoiled/immature thugs in that anyone’s over-sized child could end up this way given the right(?) socialization:
http://www.omaha.com/article/20130703/HUSKERS/707039818/1685#former-husker-defensive-end-cited-for-assault
July 4th, 2013 at 3:57AM
About a year ago, Allan Pinkett, a former Notre Dame All American, pro player and, currently, play by play announcer for ND football radio, was asked about current ND players. He said that what the team needed was a criminal element, guys who aren’t afraid to break the law, and get into serious trouble. The announcers were trying to get him to rescind what he said, but he wouldn’t back down, saying as it is, you need thugs on every team.
Being ND, the preeminent catholic university in the world, the administration was outraged, and banished Pinkett from the broadcast booth for the first two games. Pinkett spoke the truth, even if the ND bright lights didn’t want American to hear it, guys with no conscience, who will do what it takes to win, are what’s needed for BCS championships. Even at what are considered “good” schools, that truism holds. Having family that attended ND, I know that many of their players were far less than stellar citizens/students, and this is at a school which boasts the highest athlete grad rate in D1. What can be expected at SEC schools????