Bad sports, good sports: Football coach is proud of theft

Posted on March 8th, 2010 by Alan Spoll

Sometimes you know there just has to be more to a story. Guy Morriss, who played for the Eagles when I was a kid, is now the head football coach at Texas A&M-Commerce, a Division II school. Recently, a couple of his players were arrested on drug charges. The school paper wrote a cover story about it last week. Early in the morning on the day of publication, some of the players went around campus and took every copy and disposed of them. When asked about the theft, Morriss stated that he was proud of his players.

I don’t know anything about the charges, or whether or not they are valid. Regardless, stating pride for the act of stealing seems a little odd, don’t you think? Even if you believe your players are innocent of the charges, would you actually take pleasure in proving that they were at least guilty of something? I don’t get it. I wish I understood the point he was trying to prove.

A college football coach, unlike an NFL coach, has a responsibility to at least act as if he is attempting to set a positive example for the young men in his charge. I suppose this could just be my opinion, but it seems bigger than that. I am not saying that he shouldn’t look out for his players, or apply his own ideas of appropriate punishment to his players’ indiscretions. Joe Paterno has been doing that for years, and he is the ultimate example of what is right in collegiate sports, in my opinion. I suppose my familiarity with Paterno is what makes things like this so disappointing. When a group of players got in trouble for some on-campus fights a couple of years ago, Paterno had the whole team cleaning Beaver Stadium after each football game. Guy Morriss, on the other hand, is applauding the fact that his team stole 2000 copies of the school newspaper because they didn’t like the report about their teammates’ drug arrest. Seems like the priorities are askew.

If you read into the athletic director’s statement that the players “weren’t smart enough to do this on their own,” you have to figure Guy Morriss may not have his current position for a whole lot longer. Sounds good to me.

Bad sports, continued:

2) Brittney Griner appears to have a great future ahead of her in women’s basketball. The Baylor freshman got herself in some trouble, though, when she threw a punch at another player in a game against Texas Tech. Good to know the thugs aren’t limited to men’s sports.

3) Rodney Stuckey, guard for the Detroit Pistons, collapsed during a timeout in the middle of a game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. He was taken to an area hospital.

OK, it’s all Bad Sports this week….

4) Jason Ferguson, a free agent defensive tackle who most recently played for the Miami Dolphins, has been suspended for the first half of the 2010 season for testing positive for performance enhancing drugs for the second time in his career. If you are caught cheating twice, I think you should miss a whole season. Eight games is a weak punishment.

5) Payback is a well-established tradition in NASCAR. A certain amount of restraint has to be expected, though. After Brad Keselowski sent him into a wreck (accidentally, in my opinion) earlier in the race, Carl Edwards returned the favor with four laps to go in the Kobalt Tools 500 in Atlanta on Sunday. The thing is that Keselowski, who was running in the top ten at the time, was sent airborne by Edwards’ intentional shot. The wreck was pretty spectacular. Keselowski was fine, fortunately, but pretty unhappy about the incident. I don’t blame him. Edwards should be suspended.

6) Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger continues to build his reputation as not just a blockhead, but also as a pretty bad guy. He has been accused of sexual assault for the second time in less than a year, this time by a woman in Georgia after an incident at a nightclub.

Bonus) This one is embarassing. A whole building full of yutzes put on Snuggies during a timeout of a Cleveland Cavaliers basketball game in order to set some kind of manufactured Guinness World Record. I want to know how it was possible that there was already a record to be broken.

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Alan Spoll

Alan Spoll is a software quality assurance director from the suburbs of Philadelphia where he lives with his wonderful wife and children. He has spent his entire life as a passionate fan of the Eagles, Phillies, Sixers, Flyers, and Penn State. Recent Phillies success aside, you will understand his natural negativity. Follow me on Twitter - @DocAlan02