The week in crimes, misdemeanors and eligibility-crippling issues legal, academic, institutional and otherwise.
It's a light week of criminality when the lead item concerns possible punishment levied against Nick Saban for using the term "coonass," a horrible slur which SMQ guesses from experience offends in the neighborhood of three actual coonasses, who don't generally mind the term (it's the Louisiana equivalent of "redneck," which rednecks don't mind, either, to put it mildly). The incredibly rich even more incredibly rich than before new Alabama coach served this week as a magnet not only for the excess of ballooning athletic department revenues but also for criticism from shocked publicity-derived interest groups:
"I routinely state that the use of that term is highly offensive to descendants of Acadians, who are commonly referred to as Cajuns," Perrin said.
Saban's own registration expired two years ago.
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Newspaper Hack has the results of the Leader's state-by-state poll, which fall narrowly in Don Nicky's favor based on very strong and what is no doubt - considering this is a Web poll - proportionately reprentational support from the state of Alabama. Louisiana, you may protest, is blue, suggesting many of the Web-savvy coonasses in question are, in fact, offended by the term "coonass." But they're really just pissed at Saban.
Examined, by USA Today, admissions policies for athletes facing serious legal issues. The report leads with Wake Forest recruit Dennis Godfrey, who led a "Rap Sheet" entry last June following a grand jury charge accusing Godfrey of kidnapping and raping a 16-year-old girl in October 2005. The story says that charge was dropped last month in exchange for guilty pleas to misdemeanors, and Godfrey has enrolled at Wake this semester. Sociology professor Earl Smith wonders in subtle and complex fashion about such second chances the university denies to "kids who want to come to play piano." SMQ would like to see a sociological study on the number of accused rapists attempted to earn a music degree from Wake Forest, though he doesn't doubt their struggles or injustices therein.
The same article mentions, but does not go into any detail on, legally-challenged recruits at Southern Miss, which since 2003 has fielded a convicted statutory rapist (Anthony Perine, just finished with his last year of eligibility) and admitted a convicted manslaughterer (Marcus Raines, still on the team but far from living up to literally fearsome projections). It also accompanies further confirmation that infamous, embattled former Miami linebacker Willie Williams intends to enroll at Louisville, where another linebacker, Nate Harris, expects to graduate this summer after struggling with the law his own self.
Charged, with persistent disorderly conduct, 18-year-old Ohio U. defensive end Kris Luchsinger, after fleeing and then attempting to fight with police early this morning [HT: Orson, who is characteristically enthused by the persistent nature of Luchsinger's conduct, as well as another opportunity to post a reference to horse-punching...though not, oddly, the slipping of mickeys to coaches]. Police told the Athens News the freshman attempted to escape down an alley "that runs from Taco Bell to Bromley Hall" when they broke up a fight on the patio of a bar called Jackie O's (a regular Bouvier hotspot in the young journalist's rarely-chronicled "Athens Summer"). The severity of the application of newly-enacted Ohio U. student conduct codes is uncertain.
Forced, into offering a Spanish class, Los Angeles Trade Tech Community College, which the L.A. Times reported today was not even planning to offer the five-week course until a dozen USC football and other male and female Trojan athletes enrolled in an effort to take advantage of a certain 73-year-old teacher:
"They knew who they were looking for," recalled one language teacher, asking not to be identified to avoid internal conflict. But months later faculty members still fume over what one calls "an image that if anyone at USC wanted an easy grade, they should take" Senora Ross' class.
In June, the athletes were looking for Senora Rose Mary Ross, 73, a grandmother and Spanish instructor with an engaging teaching style and a generous grading philosophy -- suddenly so popular that she had to take on two classes at once.
Ross normally taught only Spanish 2 during the summer but agreed to teach the Spanish 3 group in the same crowded classroom. Like many other community college courses, her five-unit classes qualified for transfer to USC and cost a fraction of the university tuition -- $141 at Trade Tech compared to about $5,500 two miles south.
And there was plenty of additional motivation.
"Those USC kids told me, 'If I took this class at USC, I'd get a D.' All of them said that," Ross said. But she is not apologetic.
"I've never given an easy grade in my life," she told The Times in a recent interview. "You come to my class and work, and I see you want to learn, I'll give you an A. I see some lazy ass, coming late all the time, acting like he doesn't care, I won't give him an A. I'll give him a B."
USC's most recently famous ass was not among the lazy posteriors looking for the easy grade, but the Times does indicate in its lead, briefly, without follow-up, that another notorious Song Girl was:
Hooray for cheating the system!
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Suspended, indefinitely, Memphis receiver Maurice Jones who was accused early Thursday of marijuana possession. The arrest - only a misdemanor, but Jones' second since October, when he was suspended on a charge of domestic assault, according to the Commercial-Appeal - occurred "in conjunction" with the much more interesting arrest of now-former Tiger receivers Mario Pratcher and Ryan Scott, who are accused of stealing a TV set and PlayStation3 from an apartment in Jaunary along with possession of the demon weed and paraphernalia.
Quick hits of the week:
• 1-29, San Francisco Chronicle: No charges for former Cal star Lynch; Inconsistent statements by ex-girlfriend of NFL-bound running back
• 1-30, Associated Press: Sixth player charged in Guilford College assault case
• 1-30, Associated Press: Former OU quarterback to appeal misdemeanor conviction
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Have a tip for "The Rap Sheet," stoolie? E-mail SMQ at sundaymorningqb-at-yahoo.cøm to report nefarious deeds.