FOUL, BUT PLAY
Colleges OK with sketchy athletes all in the name of winning
SO MAZI Smith played on and plays on. There’s a national title to be won, big bonus money to be pocketed.
Why, at 6-foot-3, 335 pounds, the Michigan defensive lineman and co-captain needed to carry a Glock 19 with three magazines while speeding through a residential neighborhood, didn’t matter. He’s a star on the football team that’s fronted by the academically prestigious University of Michigan.
Smith’s lawyer told WXYZ that the gun was legally registered to Smith, but his client did not have a concealed pistol license at the time he was pulled over by police.
Such stories have become a nickel-a-dozen, relegated to a paragraph at the back of sports sections, ignored by TV.
The nation’s big-time football and basketball colleges continue to recruit young criminals to their campuses in the pursuit of no greater collegiate return than winning games.
Currently an investigation continues into the predawn fatal shooting last month of a University of New Mexico student, allegedly by 6-foot-8 New Mexico State forward Mike Peake, who was in Albuquerque to play UNM. The two, according to police, exchanged gunfire.
Peake, from Chicago and now playing for his third college after Georgia and Austin Peay, reportedly was “lured” to a UNM on-campus dorm by students who planned to attack him in revenge for a fight at the football game between the schools in October. Peake allegedly was shot once by 19-year-old Brandon Travis. Peake reportedly returned fire four times with his own gun, killing Travis.
The New Mexico State basketball team, including coaches, then left town, until its bus was pulled over by police.
This story — which once would have been incredible, sensational, impossible — hasn’t even made much news outside of New Mexico.
So I was wondering: Perhaps it’s time big-time football and basketball colleges leveled with parents of incoming academics-only freshmen, warning them of a data-supported likelihood that those recruited to play football and basketball are most likely to commit crimes, the kind that can imperil their kids.
Michigan’s Smith hasn’t missed a game since he was arrested on Oct. 7. At 6-3, 335, why did he need a Glock with three magazines? To defend himself from pre-med students?
Parents have no right to ask why such risks are recruited, remain on the team, remain on the campus? It’s none of their business, just keep those checks rolling in?
Thursday, Smith pleaded guilty to a reduced weapons possession charge, a misdemeanor.
Also Thursday, ESPN presented its annual College Football Awards show. After several clips of players showboating, as opposed to playing football — that’s ESPN’s sense and sell of sports — the final scene chosen was of the Michigan player planting the university flag on and in Ohio State’s midfield logo after the Wolverines’ win in Columbus on Nov. 26.
ESPN chose to celebrate an incendiary, unsportsmanlike, kick-’emwhen-they’re-down act, the kind that leads to brawls and debases rivalries to genuine, blood-on-theboil, illogical hatred.
This season, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh bitterly complained that players from Penn State and Michigan State started brawls in the tunnel that led to the locker rooms at Michigan’s stadium, ironically nicknamed “The Big House.”
After the Michigan State game, Harbaugh insisted that suspensions and arrests be made. Seven MSU “student-athletes” were suspended and charged with assault.
Yup, Coach Harbaugh is strictly a law-and-order guy. So Mazi Smith, Glock 19 with three magazines, played on and plays on for Harbaugh. There’s a national title to be won, millions in “just win, baby” bonus money for Harbaugh to chase.
Parents and real students? Proceed at your own peril. It’s all twisted, backward, I know. In the meantime, parents, please remit.