Thursday, July 10, 2008

You don't have to be a college athlete to be stupid

As a society, we’ve grown numb to crimes like “marijuana possession” or “disorderly conduct”, especially when it comes to athletes that we root for every week. But the feathers of even the most diehard fans begin to ruffle when the allegations include “felony possession of cocaine” or “felony rape, aggravated assault, and kidnapping”.

Those are the two charges facing former Arkansas QB Matt Jones and former Florida SG Teddy Dupay respectively. Jones and two others were arrested in Fayetteville this morning. Dupay’s charges stem from an incident in Utah last month.

For Jones in particular, there is no excuse for this behavior. He’s a WR in the NFL, making great money and yet he’s busted in his college town doing cocaine in an SUV. There are plenty of people who would kill to be in his situation, but he apparently takes it for granted. He always came off as a clean cut kid at Arkansas. It’s too bad he’s wasting his life. Maybe he just took the fight Arkansas fight song a bit too literally... Hit that line, Hit that line, Keep on going...

Dupay on the other hand never came across as clean cut and never really tried to. He ran his mouth a lot on the court and didn’t even play his senior year after being linked to a gambling ring on campus. But that’s still a far cry from the charges he’s facing now.

It just struck me as odd that these two charges surfaced on the same day for two former SEC all-conference athletes.

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