The week in crimes, misdemeanors and eligibility-crippling issues legal, academic, institutional and otherwise.
SMQ's long lost regular off-season feature picks up right where it left off on the old site last summer: with Reggie Bush cheatin' news.
SMQ would like to say first that, as a faithful partisan of the New Orleans Saints, he loves Reggie Bush in unhealthy, barely explicable and 100 percent platonic, heterosexual fashion, but also that Reggie Bush may be kinda dumb. Or at least...I dunno, lateraling the ball during the Rose Bowl, taking valuable cash and prizes from an insta-agent with zero clients to his name, admitting on tape you owe insta-agent "his money" when doing so can cost eligibility, a Heisman and a completely intact (that is, not split) mythical championship? Take some tips on your game from Marlo Stanfield, Reggie: conduct your business outdoors, discuss it only with playas you know and trust, don't even trust them, and throw the cell away after the first illicit call. And check for wires! Damn.
Enthused, Orson Swindle, over the official kickoff Thursday of Every Day Should Be Saturday's 2007 off-season crime tally by West Virginia quarterback Adam Bednarik, who was charged a day earlier with drunk-driving down Morgantown's Willey Street. Bednarik "has been sidelined since the 2005 season with injuries," according to the account of vaguely pedophilic-sounding local TV station WBOY, and a DUI is hardly going to help his effort to wrest the job back from upstart Pat White, whom Bednarik described as "a crap passer" and "the greatest player in the world. No, the greatest guy in the world," before vomiting on the "Quarterback Outlook" page in the 2005 WVU media guide.
Preceding his teammate, Mountaineer wide receiver Jeremy Bruce was jailed for 24 hours and fined $100 on a DUI charge last Friday.
Ordered, to stand trial for attempted first-degree murder, former Northern Colorado punter Mitch Cozad, who was charged with stabbing starting punter Rafael Mendoza in his kicking leg last Sept. 11 in a "dimly lit" apartment parking lot. Weld County District Judge Marcelo Kopcow ordered the trial after hearing testimony last Friday from witness Kevin Aussprung, to whom Cozad's defense is apparently attempting to shift the crime. For his part, Cozad is projected to punt and kick off next fall for the Weld County Jail intramural squad.
Look, Cozad wants to punt, Cozad punts, okay?
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Scheduled, for trial, a lawsuit by Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis, who alleges doctors in Boston botched a gastric bypass operation when he was an assistant with the Patriots before the 2002 season. Residual effects were clearly the only reason the unstoppable New England juggernaut failed to win a second consecutive - in what could have been an unprecedented string of four - Super Bowl the following fall, or even miss the playoffs. With a healthy Weis, who was calling the offensive shots for the 2003 and `04 champs before raising the shimmering skyscraper of Notre Dame from the ashes of the Insight Bowl, unthinkable.
Courted, "Rap Sheet" favorite Willie Williams, by Louisville, where new coach Steve AgroKragthorpe is wasting no time adjusting to the ethically treacherous demands of retaining the Cardinals' newfound "elite" status. Williams apparently steered clear of the law at has about a dozen arrests since 1999 (when he turned 13), including a memorable display of gratitude to his hosts on a recruiting trip to Florida:
Boys will be boys! And soon, if all goes according to the master plan, Cardinals.
Invoked, the Constitution, by the parents of three of the five Guilford College (NC) players accused of beating three Islamic students - one visiting from NC State - and calling them "terrorists":
guilt," the [parents'] statement said.
When has the community and media ever not let the system run its course in determining the innocence or guilt of athletes? Have more faith, parents, in our society's ability to properly assess your children and, by extension, your worth as guardians and human beings. Michael Bates, Michael Robert Six, Christopher Barnette, Jonathan Underwood and the improbably-named Jazz Favors were charged with misdemeanors and face possible "hate crime" charges pending an FBI investigation.
Quick criminal hit of the week:
* Jan. 24: Former MSU football player pleads not guilty to drug charges (Associated Press)
Come across a tip for "The Rap Sheet"? E-mail Sunday Morning Quarterback at sundaymorningqb-at-yahoo.com.
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