by Roy Exum
posted October 15, 2009
 Roy Exum |
Never mind that Hout had just tapped Blount on the shoulder, taunting him after the game; what the whole world saw on ESPN was the star running back slugging the winner and, oh, did he ever drop the unsuspecting Hout. Then ensued a nationwide lynching party and admittedly I was part of it, all of us crying “foul” of the first order and Oregon quickly responding by suspending LeGarette “for life.”
Fast forward: since the ugly incident, the Ducks have won five straight. The team is ranked 13th in the country going into this Saturday’s Washington game and LeGarrette Blount, last year’s leading rusher, can only sit. The troubling part is that until he became a YouTube highlight, LeGarrette was regarded as “a good kid,” a promising pro prospect who, in only a fleeting second, dashed it all on national TV.
Okay, we have the crime. We have the punishment. But where’s the lesson? Word has now begun to trickle from the Williamette Valley that Oregon coach Chip Kelly has just cracked a door for the kid to play. The plan is that if Blount behaves, he may get to play the last four games of the season. It's a beautiful story that will eclipse the shameful act that left an ugly smear on college football itself. This new story will be better, too; it is about compassion.
It hardly takes a genius to realize what Blount has been through since his outburst. He has talked in depth to guys like Kermit Washington and Tony Dungy about learning from his mistake. He has apologized and then apologized even some more. He actually wrote a tear-stained letter to the Oregon student newspaper, begging forgiveness. He called both the Boise State coach, Chris Petersen, and – of course – the sore-jawed Hout. All is square.
So if he lives up to a “rigid set of conditions” we have just learned his coach has set forth, the opportunity to play in the last four games of the season might revive LeGarrette’s chances of making it to pro football and who among us wouldn’t relish that?
Last weekend Idaho linebacker Tre’Shawn Robinson was thrown out of the game against San Jose State for throwing a punch. He was later reprimanded by the Western Athletic Conference. Mind you, he was only reprimanded, the conference warning that a further incident would result in a one-game suspension.
Michigan linebacker Jonas Mouton actually was suspended for one game after he threw a jab at a Notre Dame player in that late-September donnybrook, but now, as cooler air sweeps across the Oregon campus in Eugene, it is equally “sportsmanlike” that LeGarrette Blount get something of a reprieve.
I have always watched with interest how college coaches have handled bad behavior. The usual method is wind-sprints at 5:30 a.m. until the culprit can run no more. Thusly, the lesson is taught. At Auburn, when Pat Dye won four SEC titles over a 10-year span, he turned it up a notch.
Pat would “develop” a youngster by having him don a battered pair of White Mule work gloves, ones with high cuffs, and then the bad boy would stick his hands through two concrete blocks, grabbing the blocks from underneath. So armed, he would then be required to run from the field below all the way up the steps to the top of Jordan-Hare Stadium.
Think that would cause you to utter a Bible verse? Understand, the malefactor had to hold the concrete blocks high enough so they wouldn’t scratch his legs, don’t you see, and if he quit or missed a step, he got to start over. Effective? Trust me, Auburn players behaved under Pat Dye.
Another SEC school suddenly had a rash of fights breaking out during daily scrimmages. So the coach instructed his staff to no longer rush in and stop the hot-heads, but to let ‘em bang on each other for a few minutes. He then told the players to “have at it” and, after about two episodes where the kids noticed nobody would stop the exhausting and senseless melee, all fighting ceased because the players learned its real hard work, it hurts, and it doesn’t get you anywhere.
When Bill Curry was at Alabama and a dust-up would occur, he would promptly send a manager for 16-ounce boxing gloves and, waiting until the end of practice so their teammates could laugh and point, invite the scrappers to lace ‘em up and do it right. After about three boxing matches, the Alabama players also quickly wised up and the gloves never had to be brought on the field again. That’s teaching and that’s learning.
It isn’t the punishment that matters, it’s the lesson. It is painfully obvious LeGarrette Blount and all the other Oregon Ducks have learned it. Now let him play. What do you wanna’ bet it will never happen again? You can book it.
royexum@aol.com
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