An interesting read - FSU (loooong)

LarryD, please don't ban me for this. Obviously written by a Gator fan (who shall remain anonymous) but food for thought nonetheless:

Before we gleefully celebrate the misfortune at St. Bob's Home for Wayward Boys, take a moment to consider one 19-year-old kid.

Adrian McPherson.

Adrian McPherson's life has been altered forever, his head lopped off by a seldom used discipline guillotine at the say so of Bwana Bob, patron saint for wayward boys and convicted felons.

This is the same Bwana Bob who giggled about his "Janikowski rules", the same one who made a sacrificial lamb of LaVerneous Coles while slapping Peter Warrick on the wrist, then lamented to the media, "He (Warrick) is my best ball player and there's millions of dollars at stake here if we win a national championship", and the same Bwana Bob who had on his staff for
years, Ronnie Cottrell, one of the cheating pillars of the crumbled
foundation that was once Alabama football.

People in Tallahassee tell me that Janikowski rarely went to class, rarely was sober and used his body as a human experiment for every drug imaginable during his tumultuous three years on the St. Bob's campus in the heart of Leon Spinks County. Is it possible that Jano managed to avoid
detection during all this time, that the coaches and athletic administration at St. Bob's were deceived by a master criminal with a mind so devious that he could hide his alcohol and drug abuse for three full years?

Or did Bwana Bob just tell everyone to keep his psycho kicker sobered up for practices and games? As long as he could kick it long and straight when the lights were on and the cameras were rolling, who cared if Jano abused drugs, women and whoever got in his path?

After all, there were millions of dollars at stake, right?

Then there was LaVerneous Coles. He had an altercation that involved his mother-in-law but that was the only time he had crossed the line. Peter Warrick on the other hand, had run afoul several times, including one instance at a McDonald's in Tampa that anyone else would have been charged with inciting a riot. So, here's Petey, with this sweetheart of a 19-year-old starstruck girl down at Dillard's. He goes in, grabs about $500 or so worth of designer clothes and she rings up one shirt.

Such a deal!

Petey convinces his best bud Verny to come on down to Dillard's to take advantage of the shop till you drop girl. Only problem is Petey isn't the brightest bulb on the Nolie tree. Dillard's security recognizes him from previous visits (there had been several), and is waiting. Petey and Verny get caught for paying something like $21 for nearly $500 of clothes.

In his grandfatherly wisdom, Bwana Bob, axes LaVerneous Coles from the team, then suspends Peter Warrick for just two games.

This is justice, Bwana Bob style.

He defended it with that perfectly logical (please note the sarcasm) explanation of "millions of dollars at stake." He talked about how he's the kind of coach who gives second chances and third chances, yet Peter Warrick with a history of living on the edge got an umpteenth chance and first time offender LaVerneous Coles was not just booted from the team, but
excommunicated by teammates who ignored him while embracing the return of Peter Warrick.

Bwana Bob laughed off the crime and told the media how he was praying for a misdemeanor.

Yuk. Yuk.

Warrick played in the national championship game after a week of Bwana Bob defending him, a week in which Jano routinely broke curfew and showed up at team meetings either drunk or high on drugs, and a week in which Bwana Bob lamented that Peter Warrick should have won the Heisman Trophy.

You know how it is. If the president can get away with it, why can't one measly wide receiver at St. Bob's Home for Wayward Boys? And after all, Petey didn't shoot the president, now did he?

What's character got to do with it anyway? It's what's on the field that counts. Right?

So now we have Adrian McPherson.

He's 19 years old. He's never been in any kind of trouble. From a good family with parents that are models of consistently Christian ethics and behavior, the kind of values that they passed down to their son, who until now, never had a blemish on his record.

People in Bradenton say he has always been a role model for the younger kids. A good student who had no problems qualifying to get in school. Great athlete. Mr. Football and Mr. Basketball for the state of Florida in the same year. That's never been done before.

Now, I'm not here to defend Adrian McPherson if he committed a felony or two. I will say this: everything I know and have been told about him says this is not a felon. This is not a kid who commits crimes.

His lawyer, Gary Irvin, a very respected member of the bar in St.
Petersburg, says that the crime in which AD has been associated with ---please note that there are no arrests... YET --- involves far more than just AD. There are very strong rumors that as many as five or six others, some of them stars, are involved in this, and these rumors flow from people with credible track records with regard to the sideshow and center ring events at that ongoing circus called St. Bob's.

Yet, AD gets axed, humiliated and his life altered forever.

Gary Irvin says that Bwana Bob and the coaching staff was told of this event last THURSDAY. Yet, they let AD play on Saturday against NC State. Teammates say that AD was a shell of his normally quiet but confident self on Friday and during the game on Saturday.

It is unconscionable that Bwana Bob would allow this kid to go out on the field to play football in a nationally televised game, knowing that he was going to run him two days later. It is the most gutless decision I've seen by a coach in 37 years of writing about college football.

It is further a display of the corruption and big bucks mentality that has turned the Nolie football program into a rotting heap of dung whose stench is going to permeate throughout college football for a long, long time.
Everything that is bad with college football and college sports in general is being highlighted by what's happened to Adrian McPherson.

We're told he is guilty of high crimes, and this may be the case, but there is a story here that isn't being told, and bet your grandma's pension fund that as we speak, there is a coverup going on in Tallahassee behind the backs of the spin control artists who are trying to tell us that those rumors that Bwana Bob is soft on discipline are far from the truth.

And even if McPherson is guilty, I go back to THURSDAY. Bwana Bob knew then what had taken place. Two days before the game, four days before he announced AD was history.

There's something rotten here. If you can't see that, get a cornea
transplant.

I believe the rumors that there are others involved here. I believe the rumor that there is deep booster involvement.

Why do I believe it?

I believe it because Bwana Bob has lost all possible credibility. There's an old joke about lawyers with which I'm about to take some journalistic liberty:

How can you tell when Bwana Bob is lying?

His lips are moving.

If Bwana Bob says it, I do not believe it.

For years, he's aw shucked and heck yeahed the media into overlooking one of the most miserable records imaginable, which is the police blotters of current and former players. As long as he was winning big, the media played along with it and giggled when Bwana Bob giggled.

Well, the media isn't giggling now. I'm not going to let this go without a shot at the media here, either. The half hearted efforts in which the media treated the continuing string of transgressions by one Nolie after another and Bwana Bob's scrunched shoulders "who'dathunkit?" responses are
repugnant. A media that is true to its responsibility would have kept Bwana Bob's feet to the fire.

How much weight did the evidence need to tumble the media and its steadfast half hearted defenses of Bwana Bob? Instead of zeroing in on a program that is so rife with corruption and bad characters that Darnell Dockett can boast in the locker room "Did you see what I did to Earnest Graham?" the media
tarred and feathered Steve Spurrier for daring to accuse Bwana Bob and the Nolie football program of being dirty to the core.

No, the media can't hide behind self righteous stories by outraged
columnists anymore. They're attempting to cover their butts by finally going after Bwana Bob, and they're patting themselves on the back right now for telling it like it is.

Telling it like it is?

If they were telling it like it is, they would have long ago run Bwana Bob out of college football instead of letting him hang on while his ego drives him to get past Joe Paterno on the all-time wins list.

If they were telling it like it is, there would have never been a situation like there is today, one in which life as he knows it is over for a 19-year-old kid who had both NFL and NBA scouts drooling and thinking they had a first round draft choice on their hands.

Now it's time for Bwana Bob to tell it like it is, and for him to do that, he's got to shed the ego long enough to stand one last time in front of that same media that's so long protected him and say, "I quit. My sell by date has expired."

For the good of college football, that needs to happen. How many more 19-year-olds are going to see their lives destroyed before he quits?

The answer to that is simple. Not one more needs to be destroyed. Of course, that leads us to one more question.

Will Bwana Bob have the guts to do something right?

In his heart he knows that the real criminal here is not Adrian McPherson. To find out who the real criminal is, all he has to do is look in the mirror.

 

Ronnie Cottrell left FSU in 98. Notice how their program has slowly declined? NO WAY IN HELL Cottrell just upped and left for Alabama and decided to start trying to pay for players. Why does the NCAA stop with Alabama? Why not look back a little further on Cottrell's recruiting tactics? Why? Because the head of the NCAA infractions committee is the AD from Clemson. Clemson=Bowden=ACC. FSU=Bowden=ACC. The NCAA should be run by a committee with NO affiliation to any conference or school. Anyone that thinks Joseph Forte had not already signed with an agent before leaving school is nuts. The NCAA did no investigation. Wisconsin gets drilled because of some players that discounts on shoes. Peter Warrick gets busted getting what? SHOES! No NCAA infraction here. Go figure.

 

Figured the Cotrell reference would get a response from you. Frankly, I've no idea what the writer was talking about, but I agree with you that the rules committee should have no affiliation with a conference.

 

that guy is wrong on so many counts, it's almost not worth pointing them all out.

but i'll poke holes where i see them...

1. he's a gator. pot, meet kettle. guess he didn't want to bring up the gator defensive lineman that pummeled his girl just before the georgia game -- but still played. her eyes are just beginning to open from the bruises he left on her face.

2. janikowski wasn't that much of a wastoid at fsu. he missed a curfew before playign virginia tech in the sugar bowl and spurrier tried his damndest in the media to put pressure on fsu to not have him play. laughable. jano's trouble was in full effect after leaving fsu. well, outside of geting into a fight with a male cheerleader.

3. this wasn't bowden't decision. it came from AD dave hart. if bobby had his way, AD would be at practice -- not starting though, he lost that on the field last week. hart is fed up with players getting into trouble. AD, from what i hear, LIED ABOUT HIS INVOLVEMENT on monday before hart, bowden and his parents. there's plenty of evidence here and AD thought he could get away with it. fsu knew all the facts, they gave him a chance to come clean monday and he flat out lied -- after which he was kicked off.

4. fsu has been watched closely by ncaa eyes ever since the footlocker incident. there's a BUNCH of gators here in tallahassee that report ANYTHING they see with players/improprieties down to gainesville.

5. hart had already put coles on probation at fsu. before the dillards discount ($391) he'd screwed up multiple times. that's why he got booted. fsu didn't have different rules for athletes -- both he and warrick went through the rules set up by the university for all students charged with a crime. that's why warrick was suspended and not kicked off. the only thing warrick had done up until then was to be charged with disorderly conduct outside a mcdonalds in tampa (the charges were dropped). by the way, warrick and coles each got 1 year probation for dillards. warrick was suspended 4 games and missed out on a shot at the heisman.

6. so, bobby finally comes off as going tough and he gets ripped. he goes soft and he gets ripped. no win situation.

7. adrian mcpherson a good student? ha. ha. ha. he's a cancer on this team. and not the only one.

8. you'll never be banned from here.

9. typical gator sour grapes. seen it a hundred times.

10. how many convicted felons ever played a game for fsu under bowden? zero.