>Major in juvenile delinqincy at the University of Oregon

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I’ve had a thing or two to say about Duckville, which resembles nothing so much as the football team at the juvenile camp immortalized in “Gridiron Gang.”

Well, there are a few differences.

Like the fact that the coaching staff in the movie was more motivated by the positive effects of individual hard work, football teamwork and sacrifice for the greater good than the “winning at any price” crock that is Oregon football.

How many arrests this year? How many crimes? These, of course, are just the issues we know about. There’s no telling how much has been swept under the rug… or where the pay offs have gone.

Well, it’s frequently said that the fish rots from the head down.

Mike Belloti is an Oregon sports icon. I believe he’s failed the school and failed his athletes by not stepping in as athletic director and taking the approrpiate steps to deal with the criminal element of the football team.

And then, to accept a $2.3 million dollar goodbye gift… almost like something from the hearts and flowers fund, is unimaginable in scope and justification.

There is no excuse for paying Bellloti this money. None. And that, as the administration of the school tells us, the money is private-sourced instead of from the taxpayers neither excuses the expenditure nor provides any justification.

But then, the criminal acts of players from Blount on down to Masoli has proven it to be next to impossible to be held properly accountable for their acts in the form of getting kicked off the team and out of school.

Why would anyone expect accountability for this buffoonery? Belotti’s ability as a coach cannot be denied. As a judge of character… well, my spaniel does a much better job.

The stench of the Ducks football team will waft over the Pac 10 for years to come.
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>Is anyone really surprised by the Ducks newly developed prison football team?

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None of this can be surprising to anyone given the mishandling of the Blount situation, a not altogether subtle message to members of the team with like minds that this kind of conduct is just swell.

A the time of the moronic handling of the Blount melodrama, I wrote this:

Yes, I do agree… this IS a “teachable moment.” And in this case, what he’s being taught is that there are few consequences for engaging in felony assault if you’re a major college football player.

Where he SHOULD be getting his “teachable moments” are in a prison cell with Bubba.

Meanwhile, this clown keeps the benefits of being a member of a major college football team, keeps his multi-thousand dollar per month scholarship, and continues to get a FREE education while being required to do even LESS to earn it.

Yeah. THAT’LL teach him.

I had little respect for the Ducks BEFORE this happened. Now, I have none at all.

They COULD have sent a message that would have reverberated across this country when it comes to accountability and college athletics, a message that when you act like an animal, you can feel free to do it some place else.

Unfortunately, the message they sent will have the opposite effect… sending the opposite message.

Had Oregon rightfully hammered Blount, would the conduct of this cabal of juvenile delinquents been different? I cannot guarantee that with a certainty. But I CAN say that such conduct would have been LESS likely than the conduct we’ve seen… conduct reminiscent of the ol‘ jailblazer days.

Accountability is a critical element. Conduct that casts a football program, or any program in a bad light must not be tolerated OR encouraged, and the utter absurdity of the Blount scam; where the player who struck another team’s player after the game had ended SHOULD have been arrested on the spot and imprisoned was allowed to not only remain in school, but remain on the team, made it clear to the other players that it could be extremely difficult to do anything that would result in actually, truly and finally getting kicked off.

As a result, it can be no shock to anyone that so many of this team’s players face prison or jail from charges ranging from burglary to assault. This fish has rotted from the head down, and those who allowed Blount to remain, both on the team and in the University of Oregon at all is the responsibility of the Administration.

To countenance this kind of thing in the name of wins and losses is despicable. And that is, unfortunately, what the Ducks have become:

Despicable.
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>Update: Oregon LOSES! The disgrace of Oregon in the Rose Bowl.

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Update:



Karma being what it is, the Ducks qwacked up and lost to what was allegedly an inferior Ohio State team, 26-17.

Making it even better was Blount’s late fumble that cost any chance of a win. He really COUGED IT!

Serves them right.

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Unfortunately, Oregon will be playing in the Rose Bowl in a couple of hours.

I say unfortunately, because a football program without character and integrity shouldn’t be playing anywhere, let alone in the Rose Bowl, and Oregon qualifies on both counts.

Oregon has a player by the name of LeGarrette Blount. Blount is a criminal… a thug… a punk who sucker-punched another player AFTER Oregon managed to lose to Boise State… and he managed to do it on national TV.

If he had an ounce of integrity, HE would have voluntarily left the Oregon Ducks BEFORE Oregon’s coaches had the chance to take any action, one way or the other.

Of course, Blount SHOULD have been arrested on the spot; tried, convicted and sentenced to prison for his assault. You know, like any of US would be if any of US had just walked up to someone and smacked them in the face.

But no, the Ducks took a course of scamming some fake punishment for this guy… as if it came close to fitting the crime.

And now, this scum is going to play in the Rose Bowl.

Those running the program at Oregon who allowed this should be fired; the school administration that allowed this should be fired, and the governor who let this go on should be fired.

What is SUPPOSED to be the purpose of college athletics, anyway? Isn’t it SUPPOSED to make those who play into better students… better people?

How did allowing an already suspended-once-this-year thug to remain on the team accomplish that? What kind of message did the complete mishandling of this nonsense send?

Where is all this concern coming from that to kick this punk off the team and out of school is somehow, as one moron put it,

But you have to wonder what would have become of Blount had he been completely removed from the team. You have to wonder whether he would have stayed in school, whether he would have graduated, how he would have reacted to having his entire life ripped away because of one incident.

Do we wonder that about robbers? How about drug dealers? Murderers? No?

Why not? What’s the difference? This is a CRIME, no different than any other.

And his punishment?

Why, he gets to keep his scholarship and play in the Rose Bowl.

The Oregon Ducks are a disgrace and they make me sick.

In a discussion I had with an alum of many years ago who was a 4 year offensive tackle for the Ducks, I asked him about this and he told me “I liked it better when it was just football. It was a better program before any of us heard of big money or Nike. Now, I don’t like it so much.”

No truer words have ever been spoken, John. And the stench of this will follow this program around for a long, long, time.

It is my earnest hope that Ohio State humiliates Oregon today.

Because Oregon deserves it.

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>So, the Ducks beat the Beavs, and that’s just a damned shame.

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I detest both Oregon State and Oregon. But the Oregon Ducks are the football team with a criminal who should be in prison, instead of in school, so he can stay in a program reminiscent of the Jailblazer’s halcyon days of basketball not so many years back.

Yes, Oregon proved they were the better athletic team. But in allowing this thug to remain on the team (which, of course, guaranteed his return to the playing field, just like I indicated it would the day he was “kicked off” the team.) they also proved something else. Something much worse… something much darker and underhanded.

I played college ball at a local Division 1A school. My involvement never got beyond “tackling dummy” stage, and orders to Saudi Arabia killed my budding walk on career before it ever started.

I have a clue about both the physical caliber of the athletes (One guy, who killed me on the field in high school, killed me on the field in college, and then went on to kill people on the field for the Oakland Raiders for several years… “kill,” of course, being a rhetorical term) and the mental acuity it takes to play. Cursed with fullback’s size but offensive tackle’s speed, it just wasn’t in the cards for me.

So, when I look at a thug taking up a scholarship that a much more deserving student could both use and appreciate, given the tens of thousands of dollars a grateful state pays for his “education,” it infuriates me that the critical elements of character and integrity have no place while wearing a Duck’s uniform.

Their win represents the most Pyrrhic of victories, where, ultimately, people around the world who follow football will forget the Ducks going to the Rose Ball LONG before they forget the thuggish behavior, and subsequent wrist slap of one of it’s players.

There are all kinds of respect. And there are all kinds of reputations. The sham/scam of non-punishment this guy received when anyone else reading this would have went to prison for assault had they engaged in this kind of behavior is the thing that will become a legend.

And the scumbag Duck organization will deserve it.

Shame on them. And shame on the entire state of Oregon who has joined with them in looking the other way while this criminal continues to play a game that he didn’t care enough about to stop himself from becoming a national embarrassment to the program and the entire state around this planet.

With any luck at all, Ohio State will drop these clowns by 38 to nothing.

Karma being what it is, that’s what they deserve.
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>Just as I called it: Blount to return to football.

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Originally posted on October 1.

The whole thing was a joke. I knew from the very beginning that these clowns were just going to wait for the dust to settle and bring this thug back onto the team.

You heard it here first: Blount will be back in uniform before the season is over, because, well, he’s “suffered enough.”

Why else would they want this clown to keep practicing with the team… keep hanging around them?

Those running the University of Oregon are amoral scum.

If Governor Kulongoski has an ounce of integrity, he’ll fire the lot of them, from the head guy at the U of O who is obviously allowing this, all the way down to every coach on the team.

And Blount SHOULD have been expelled; PERMANENTLY, BEFORE he went to prison for assault.

Just exactly what the hell kind of message is this sending? What would the law have done to me if I had popped Blount in the mouth on the street? Why does Oregon believe in this double standard?

The entire school administration and football team staff should be fired if this thug is re-instated.
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