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dr9

dr9

NewBee
Registered Member
Dec 12, 2009
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athens ga
Let's say you are the head coach of a big football school in the south. One of your freshmen who also happens to be one of your most promising players gets in trouble during spring break. He's at a bar drinking underage with a fake id. He tries to feel up some girls and gets tossed from the bar. He makes a scene and cops show up. The cops offer to let him go with a sober friend to drive him home, but the kid wants to keep arguing. So the cops arrest him and charge him with underage drinking and having a fake id.

As the head coach, what do you do? Suspend him for a game? Suspend him for the season? Kick him off the team? Do nothing until the local jurisdiction convicts him of something- innocent until proven guilty?
 
I would discipline him according to whatever my particular school's policy is regarding that type of thing. Just because he's a gifted athlete doesn't mean he's above being answerable for his poor decisions. He made two. Getting caught, and then running his mouth when the cops tried to be decent. Underage drinking is usually just a ticket and a fine (at least at a few of the colleges here in IL) but the fake ID thing might be more serious.

If he has a scholarship, he might have more to worry about than wheter he is going to miss a couple games in the fall....
 
"Violation of team rules". If that rule is "don't get arrested if you want to be on the team" then, well, he should've kept his yap shut. Another article mentioned that another player was kicked off the team earlier, after being arrested and charged for domestic violence, though that was his 3rd arrest in 5 months.

Reading one article from ESPN, it was mentioned that he graduated HS early in order to start working with the team. That, to me, shows that he wanted it and was going to work hard for it. The article also mentions he was facing a 1 game suspension.

If he was kicked off the team after the story broke, then that's crap, if the reasoning is fear of bad press. He was already given his punishment.
 
At the beginning of last season, I believe, you may remember that Oregon player who punched out an opposing player, knocked him cold out on the field after the game. He was kicked off the team. Coach Richt in a local interview here in Georgia said he thought it was a bad decision and he believes in second chances, all part of his deep Christian faith and such. And as you mentioned, the guy that was arrested for the 3rd time in 5 months and was finally kicked off, he was just a walk-on, a nobody. The QB who got drunk and thrown out of a bar (which I've done in 4 states) is also your most promising player, highly recruited, he tosses after 1 offense. That's what doesn't make sense. The only wild card here is that the GBI is involved. (GBI is like the FBI but for Georgia). GBI doesn't get involved in underage drinking cases, they stick with drug traffic and organized crime. Perhaps there is more to the story.
 
Just playing devil's advocate here, but having a fake ID is a pretty serious offense, and something LEOs usually don't take lightly. It doesn't surprise me that they would involve a state agency like the GBI. They are probably trying to figure out who made the fakes and where he got them. Underage drinking and possessing a fake ID are two completely different crimes, and the latter is much more serious.

An ESPN article said the charges included "disorderly conduct, obstruction and two counts of possession of false identification." This wasn't some poor kid who was innocently having a few drinks and got caught in a sting of cops looking for fake IDs, he did something to precipitate police involvement. The obstruction and TWO counts of fake ID lead me to believe he lied to the police about his identity and actually tried to pass himself off as the fake. That's not something to scoff at.

Sounds like the kid was being a total jacka**, picking a fight at a bar (hence the "disorderly conduct" charge), and thought he could get away with it as a 6'5", 235lb UGA starting QB.

Sorry buddy, your butt gets thrown in jail like the rest of us if you can't hold your liquor and/or your tongue. It also sounds like the cops gave him the benefit of the doubt before deciding to take more serious action (and I am NOT one who usually sides with the police in cases like this).

The coach is the coach, and he felt like this event warranted an expulsion from the team. That is his prerogative. Who knows, maybe this was the final straw in a long series of arrogant and/or disrespectful behaviors that the coach felt was detrimental to the team atmosphere. I highly doubt this was his "first offense" (maybe on paper).

Good for the coach for making a tough decision and taking the flak for having to make it.

dr9 said:
The QB who got drunk and thrown out of a bar (which I've done in 4 states)
Click to expand...

Dude, I'm not sure I would go around admitting that in a public forum...
 
It's actually only 2 states where I was thrown out per se`, those being Georgia and Florida. When I was thrown out in South Carolina and Mississippi, it was a "we" getting thrown out kind-of-thing, I didn't actually do anything wrong.

There's nothing wrong with admitting that on a public forum. None of you know who I am. And anyone that does, knows worse things than getting thrown out of bars.


I agree with you 100% about the coach. His reputation among NCAA is stellar. His winning percentage is among the best, he came up under Bowden, and his existence defines class. If he wants to kick someone off the team, something he's only done once or twice in his 10+ year tenure, I'm fine with it. He's got reasons he can't necessarily articulate to the media, being that he is bound by privacy restrictions and such, and the investigation is pending, he and the athletic department could get sued.

However.. Mettenberger will make a great quarterback for someone. Too bad he screwed it all up at UGA.
 
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