Sunday Morning Quarterback

Saturday, May 06, 2006

THE RAP SHEET
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The week in eligibility-crippling issues - legal, academic, institutional and otherwise...

The week kicked off with the bizarre story - or huge misunderstanding, depending on your perspective - of an apparently random person who was not only chastised but actually arrested for contacting Tyrone Prothro after his sickening ankle injury without registering with the state as a sports agent. Alabama takes this stuff seriously:

The Alabama Athlete Agent Regulatory Commission had concerns about Savage Sports Management well before Goggins surrendered Monday. The commission denied Savage's application to work in Alabama on Nov. 29, 2005, according to Hope Ayers, deputy attorney general for the secretary of state.

Goggins' arrest is the eighth criminal case pursued by the state against sports agents, said Joy Patterson, spokeswoman for the attorney general's office. The agent commission was created in 1988, and an amendment in 2001 requires agents to be licensed.

Failing to register is a class C felony, punishable by one to 10 years in prison and a fine up to $5,000. Initiating contact without being registered is a class A misdemeanor, punishable up to one year in prison and a fine up to $2,000.

The law also requires an athlete to notify his or her athletic director within 72 hours, or before the next scheduled event, if the athlete enters a verbal or written contract or accepts anything of value from an agent or an agent's "runner."
[...]
The crackdown on sports agents is meaningful in this state. The NCAA has previously penalized the University of Alabama and Auburn University because of the relationships agents had with athletes.

In the next legislative session, the state will consider requiring registered agents to notify an athlete's university before contact is made.

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I tell ya this kid's goin' up up up! We gotta sign 'im!

Prothro, importantly, is not in any eligibility trouble - if that is, he's able to play again at all.

COMMITTED, to community service, rehab and anger management, USC linebacker Rey Maualuga, who achieved the dubious distinction of getting put in A.A. more than a year before he's legally allowed to drink.
rehab for Maualuga agrees to terms of rehab
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=ncf&id=2429340

BROKEN, by Orson Swindle, days before the major media outlets picked it up, the story of Ohio U. player Corey Logan, who was booked for misdemeanor assault after he allegedly punched a horse in the head. Orson actually picked up the report via a reader of Ohio U.'s The Post, continuing the college newspaper tradition of highlighting the weirdest possible story at all times.

"We were forcing them up the sidewalk and this guy turned around and hit the horse," said Athens police officer Randy Gray, who was riding the horse named Chip. "He used the heel of his hand and did a heel strike on him right between the eyes." Chip was unfazed.

Gray said it was the third time that one of his horses has been hit by a student from the campus about 65 miles southeast of Columbus.
(emphasis SMQ's)

Given its resiliency, maybe Frank Solich should sign the horse to shore up the Bobcats' defensive line.

Another Ohio U. player, Rudy Sylvan was charged with disorderly conduct in the same incident, though presumably with far less flare.

ARRESTED, on the latest of endless "disorerly at the club" incidents, Oklahoma fullback Dane Zaslaw, who was drunk and disorderly while "punching his fists in the air as if challenging others to fight," at a club last Friday.

BOOTED, for an "inappropriate comment" at a restaurant, Tennessee's Raymond Henderson. Oh, tantalizing is the prospect of learning the statement so vile its speaker should be barred from a football locker room.

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I'm going to UT, but you know who can really coach, though? That Steve Spurrier can coach...

NAMED, in a probe into a quid pro quo deal with a local cell phone store manager, Iowa cornerback Marcus Paschal and freshly graduated Hawkeyes Antwan Allen, Marques Simmons and Jovon Johnson, who apparently gave away free games passes in exchange for discounts. The horror of voluntary commerce!

CHARGED, two UCLA players accused of felony assault charges stemming from a fight one of the players' parents' home. Linebacker John Hale and defensive tackle Jess Ward pleaded not guilty Thursday to whatever they're alleged to have done during the altercation, which, according to Karl Dorrell, was just move out of the house.

SUSPENDED, Wisconsin defensive end Jamal Cooper, who will miss the Badgers' season-opener against Bowling Green for an unidentified action that "has nothing to do with NCAA, Big Ten or university academic requirements," but fell well below "the academic standards of performance" new coach Bret Bielema expects out of his student-athletes.

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