Frank Solich has turned around Ohio's football fortunes, but numerous off-the-field incidents involving Solich and his team are starting to wear thin in Athens. After word came down this week of the arrest of two more Ohio players — bringing the total number of Bobcat players arrested since January 2006 to at least 14 — the Athens News published a lengthy story examining Solich's problematic student-athletes dating to his days at Nebraska. Jonathan Hunt, in a nice piece of reporting, reviewed past Bobcat rosters and court records and found that the team's legal difficulties had been in decline for several years until increasing markedly under Solich. Then there was Solich's drunken-driving conviction in November 2005. The coach has steadfastly denied culpability in his case, saying he was drugged, but his attempt to withdraw his plea failed last August. The recent arrests of two players involved a violent incident at a restaurant, and the paper also found that another player had been cited in January for rear-ending a car, sending a man to the hospital and bringing the player his sixth traffic charge since October 2005. Thanks to Steroid Nation for bringing this to our attention.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Solich's Problematic Student-Athletes
Frank Solich has turned around Ohio's football fortunes, but numerous off-the-field incidents involving Solich and his team are starting to wear thin in Athens. After word came down this week of the arrest of two more Ohio players — bringing the total number of Bobcat players arrested since January 2006 to at least 14 — the Athens News published a lengthy story examining Solich's problematic student-athletes dating to his days at Nebraska. Jonathan Hunt, in a nice piece of reporting, reviewed past Bobcat rosters and court records and found that the team's legal difficulties had been in decline for several years until increasing markedly under Solich. Then there was Solich's drunken-driving conviction in November 2005. The coach has steadfastly denied culpability in his case, saying he was drugged, but his attempt to withdraw his plea failed last August. The recent arrests of two players involved a violent incident at a restaurant, and the paper also found that another player had been cited in January for rear-ending a car, sending a man to the hospital and bringing the player his sixth traffic charge since October 2005. Thanks to Steroid Nation for bringing this to our attention.
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2 comments:
The Athens News is notorious for publishing anything and everything they can negatively about the university - both athletic and academic.
While I don't doubt the football program has some bad actors, I know the paper will work diligently to repeatedly hammer those items to death. When I was a student a Ohio, a fellow freshman who was a basketball player was arrested for underage drinking. The paper called it a "class (something) misdemeanor" and referenced it that way only. What a joke, you'd have thought he assaulted someone.
Of course, Frank is teflon at Ohio. But he won't be much longer - he's younger than you think, and he'll parlay his success into a bigger job - he openly admits he'd move for the right opportunity.
It sounds like somebody better wake up and get their heads out of the sand, as long as their is great pressure to win every year on coaches these problem athelete are going to continue appearing on campuses across the country.
Coaches are forced to recruit for the best athelete which is mostly in the inner city. Allot of them have questionable back grounds. In most cases these atheletes are not there for an education, but to get a free ride into NFL.
These questionalble atheletes have been pampered during there whole career. We as a society have been told to continue giving them second chances. So as long as there is a priority to win on the field, there are going to be more atheletes making the police blotter ensted of the sports page.
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