Sunday Morning Quarterback

Friday, June 02, 2006

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

First up this week, a decent report from USA Today on the NCAA's forthcoming smackdown of diploma mills, from many of which it will formally stop accepting transcripts next week. Quote of the week comes from a lawyer for some of the schools, whom SMQ is gleefully imagining as one of the unfrozen caveman variety:

A lawyer representing some of the schools under investigation, however, said most of the schools are church-affiliated, which would make the NCAA's intrusion an unconstitutional violation of church-state separation, and that the investigation is akin to "trying to kill a flea with an atomic bomb."

"They're not an accreditation agency and they don't have the technical expertise to do it," attorney Don Jackson of Montgomery, Ala., told The Associated Press.

The NCAA board of directors in April gave the association authority to investigate so-called "diploma mills," including the examination of individual transcripts. Lennon said the NCAA had been concerned for several years about the academic credentials of some of the college freshmen from "nontraditional" schools.

The investigation was accelerated after a New York Times story on University High School, a Miami correspondence school that had no classes or instructors and operated almost without supervision, allegedly offering diplomas for $399.

That NYT article, from last November, singles out Tennessee DB Demetrice Morley, who played a good bit as a freshman last year, and players from ten other D-I schools: Auburn, Central Florida, Colorado State, Florida, Florida State, Florida International, Rutgers, South Carolina State, South Florida and Temple.

It also has this to say about the history of University High School:

The man who founded University High School and owned it until last year, Stanley J. Simmons, served 10 months in a federal prison camp from 1989 to 1990 after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud for his involvement with a college diploma mill in Arizona. Among the activities Simmons acknowledged in court documents were awarding degrees without academic achievement and awarding degrees based on studies he was unqualified to evaluate.

In interviews last week, he said he should never have pleaded guilty and that he operated legitimate correspondence schools for adults.

In 2004, Simmons sold University High to Michael R. Kinney, its director. Kinney, 27, who was arrested on a marijuana possession charge in 2003 and is wanted on a bench warrant, declined to comment, despite requests by phone, fax and visits to his apartment.

AWARDED, figuratively, Florida State's Wyatt Sexton Award for Most Outstanding Offseason Display of Hallucinogen-Related Batshit Insanity, ex-wide receiver Fred Rouse, who was not only arrested outside the home of a Florida state senator in Tallahassee, not only charged with possession of a controlled substance after ecstatsy pills fell out of his pocket in the midst of said arrest, but on top of that was also hit along with an ex-teammate and Bengals draft pick A.J. Nicholson with grand larceny in the robbery of hanother former teammate, Lorenzo Booker, of 1,700 in electronics on May 20 or 21. Rouse, kicked off the team for "detrimental conduct in January," and Nicholson, accused of sexual assault days before the Orange Bowl, were fingered in the theft because:

A Nike glove with No. 1 on it, also Rouse's jersey number, was found underneath a television. Booker said he and his roommates suspected Rouse and Nicholson.

Nicholson spoke to an investigator and said he had come to Tallahassee on May 19 to help his girlfriend move, according to the report. Investigators said they had found drops of blood in front of the apartment of Nicholson's girlfriend. Nicholson said he cut his hand while helping his girlfriend move.
(HT: The ever-vigilant Wizard of Odds)

- - - - -
You wore the glove? Who told you to wear the glove? I didn't tell you to wear the glove! Why'd you put the glove on?

Is this a setup? Is Mark Fuhrman behind this? Or does Fred Rouse actually wear his playing glove around all the time? Is he in denial over his dismissal? Or could this just be his incredibly bad idea for avoiding fingerprint evidence? "Dude, they'll never know it's me - I got my gloves, man!" With your number written on them, you fool...

Unless, of course, this is a setup. A senator is involved. And his kid, who has roman numerals behind his name. And Bobby Bowden. This could be a setup. SMQ isn't making accusations, he's just saying, is all.

As for Nicholson - not yet arrested, apparently - he hasn't come to terms yet with the Bengals, but could he be that hard-up for cash? He's months, maybe weeks, from bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars, and he breaks into a college guy's house and steals an X-Box? Are there no loans available for fifth-round draft picks? Come to think of it, there was an eye-black sticker with "54" written on it on the floor after a PlayStation was stolen from SMQ's house last month...

APPEALED, Ohio Coach Frank Solich's November conviction for drunken driving, on the grounds that - seriously, now - he was drugged with the "date rape" drug GHB. Speculation to this effect has been rampant for months now, but it was only today made hysterically official:

Attorney Sam Shamansky filed a request Friday asking the Athens Municipal Court to look at the drug test and consider overturning Solich's conviction. Solich, a former Nebraska coach, pleaded no contest in November after police spotted him slumped over the wheel of his vehicle.

A test performed in January on a hair sample from Solich showed positive for GHB (gamma hydroxybutyrate), an odorless, colorless drug that is often mixed with alcohol.

"There's no way he could have been in the condition described by police given the moderate amount of alcohol he consumed," Shamansky said. "Frank is not a drug user."

The Sporting News reports Solich has been granted a hearing at an unknown date; SMQ his own self asked in April: Who would want to date rape Frank Solich?

- - - - -
Judge: Solich "not hot enough" to be slipped GHB

RELEASED, lurid details of the sexual assault charge SMQ reported last week against Oregon recruit Marvin Johnson and ex-Nebraska signee Major Culbert, both of whom were accused of going to far in two girls' off-campus apartment on a recruiting trip to Eugene in January. SMQ is not interested in generating porn hits to this space, but otherwise advises curious readers to click that link for the specifics from the Lincoln Journal Star.

CLARIFIED, Rhett Bomar's precision troubles last year, by an underage drinking charge, to which he pled guilty this week. Okay, totally not fair, it's just underage drinking, just over the line of forgetting to buckle your seatbelt (or, if you prefer, protesting the facist bastards' overbearing intrusion into citizens' private decisions about their own bodies and well-being, dammit!), and obviously the kid was not playing or practicing drunk - and wouldn't be the first even if he was. But it's fun to say, 'cuz Bomar was kinda inconsistent as a redshirt freshman. Ha ha! He was sentenced to six months probabtion.

NOT a crime, but a much weirder headline nonetheless out of Oklahoma: Flesh-eating Bacteria Killed Adair. That is, Devin Adair, a former Tulsa player, died from complications of necrotizing fasciitis on April 28, according to autopsy reports.

Adair was a 225-pound JUCO tight end who signed with Tulsa out of a California junior college in February. Read more about necrotizing fasciitis here.

BAILING, for "failing to meet program standards off the field," three West Virginia players: Pernell Williams, Tyler Benoit and Chad Mayse. Williams might have started if not for Steve Slaton last year, but instead got jerked around between cornerback and running back in the Spring and will seek, uh, employment, as it were, elsewhere. Specific charges, as usual, are chalked up to anonymous, "team rules"-type vaguery by SID Shelly Poe, hamstrung by "privacy issues."

DISAPPOINTED, Tommy Tuberville, in redshirt freshman linebacker Tray Blackmon, who, allowing years of frustration to boil over after for being named after a cafeteria utensil, was charged back on May 13 with underage drinking and "pedestrian under the influence," whatever that's supposed to mean. LaGrange PD: please. That is weak. The report says he was in a car before running into some woods - charge him with DUI, or just leave it at underage, or at most add misdemeanor eluding. But since when is it illegal to walk around under the influence?
(HT: EDSBS, natch)

And last but not least...

ARRESTED, this morning, freshman Iowa DB Corey Robertson, another public drunk. Details of this case are not available because it comes from an ~~eagle~~ hawk-eyed blotter spotter who somehow found it here. Most interesting - other than Robertson's "unknown" address - is the presence of a dude named "Bonebrake," a 20-year-old charged with public intoxication and also "interfering with public acts." SMQ, were he Kirk Ferentz, could not restst taking a peek into the cell of any offender named Bonebrake when he headed down to the jail to bail out his player. What coach wouldn't take a shot on that guy?
(HT: EDSBS again, this time via Kinnick North)

- - - - -
Permalink

6:44 PM

Comments: Post a Comment