Bo Schembechler and Sexual Abuse At University of Michigan

If you grew up in the state of Michigan in the seventies or eighties, the University of Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler was something akin to a demigod. You might not have cared for Bo if you were a Michigan State or heaven forbid Ohio State fan but Bo was an icon. 

He restored the U-M football team to prominence and won thirteen Big Ten Titles. Bo was, at least as far as the public could see, a tough mean SOB with a hidden heart of gold who turned boys into "Michigan Men".  For much of the time Bo was at U-M, there weren't many other winning local teams, professional or collegiate. More than anyone before or since, Bo Schembechler was Michigan. 

If you were searching for a stereotypical hard nosed masculine football coach who preached and lived doing the right thing, if you wanted to find a man who drank TNT and smoked dynamite, then Bo Schembechler was him.

Be tough. Stand up for yourself. Be a man. Put the welfare and safety of your peers and those under your protection before your own well being. Always do the right thing no matter what it costs. The team, the team, the team. That's what Bo was all about. Or so we were led to believe. Apparently, allegedly, there was another side. Just 10 years old at the time, Matt Schembechler said that he summoned the courage to tell his new stepfather a horrific, uncomfortable and humiliating truth: During a physical examination he’d been fondled and digitally penetrated by a doctor, Robert Anderson.

Anderson was the team doctor for the University of Michigan football team, which Matt’s stepfather, Bo, coached. This was 1969, and as Matt tells it now, Bo told him he didn’t want to hear about the incident and even struck the child hard enough to knock him across the kitchen in the family’s Ann Arbor home.“

OSU Dominates U-M Again

On Saturday November 30th, the Ohio State University football team defeated the University of Michigan football team by a score of 56-27. And to be honest it wasn't really that close. Ohio State beat the stuffing out of Michigan in every physical and mental aspect of the game: defense, offense, special teams, tackling, blocking, running, passing, catching, and coaching. It was in most respects, a repeat of last year's beatdown.

Ohio State featured a first year coach, Ryan Day, but Day evidently had his players fired up and ready to lay a stomping on Michigan. It was the eighth victory in a row by Ohio State over Michigan. In the past sixteen matches between the two schools, Ohio State has been victorious in fifteen of them. 

There are high school football players, heck even graduate students who really don't have a memory of a time when U-M was even competitive in this series. This rivalry has become less of a rivalry than a yearly ritual thrashing and blood sacrifice. 

A rivalry requires that each team sometimes gets some victories over the other. A rivalry requires that win, lose or draw, each team gives it all they've got. A rivalry requires that after the game, both teams know that they've been in a serious fight. U-M head coach Jim Harbaugh was hired to do three things on the field-- win the Big 10 championship, make U-M at least occasionally relevant for the National Championship conversation, and oh yes, BEAT OHIO STATE.

The Matt Patricia Situation

First impressions can often be lasting ones. New NFL Detroit Lions Head Coach Matt Patricia, who has barely been on the job for three months, is battling to make sure that his public persona remains the bearded wunderkind coaching phenom rarely found without a pencil behind his ear and not the fraternity guy who skated on rape charges two decades ago. Patricia, who left the New England Patriots to take the Detroit Lions job found himself having to explain a 1996 indictment on rape charges and how he had never communicated that to his employers in New England or Detroit. The Detroit News did some digging into Patricia's past and discovered this information.

She told police they met on a Texas beach, fellow college students visiting South Padre Island during spring break 1996. She was a 21-year-old college student at a large university; they were two football players and Theta Chi fraternity brothers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York. On the evening of March 15, 1996, the woman told police that two men burst into the upscale hotel room where she was sleeping and took turns violently sexually assaulting her, according to court records and a news account at the time. They were arrested, charged and later indicted by a grand jury on one count of aggravated sexual assault — but they never stood trial and were not convicted.  One of the indicted men was 21-year-old Matt Patricia, who was hired as the head coach of the National Football League’s Detroit Lions in February. 

Miko Grimes and Anti-Semitic Statements

I was raised to believe that no matter what your family should be united against the outside world. So this means that if your brother gets into a fight with the local college football team you jump in to protect him even if he started it and was utterly in the wrong. If he gets his behind kicked then you'd better be right there on the floor taking the beating with him. If someone calls your sister stupid or otherwise insults her then you rise to her defense even if you think to yourself that the person making that statement may actually have a point. You can cuss out and fight with your relatives later. But if someone else bothers them then that someone else has a problem with you. And this would obviously go double for your husband or your wife. After all you took a vow which, depending on when you were married, probably included some language about forsaking all others, honoring, obeying, and/or protecting your spouse in sickness and health, in good times and bad until you are separated by death. That's not just boilerplate. It's pretty serious stuff. You're taking an oath, after all. None of these ties and bonds, whether familial or romantic, mean that you are always going to like your family or your nookie providers or agree with them. You may well believe that a relative had to have been dropped on their head as a child to be so dumb or idly wonder if your spouse will indeed bequeath an unpleasant trait to your children. But it's your right to have and express those beliefs, no one else's. I'm not going to publicly criticize or distance myself from family even if I think they are 100% offbase. I'll have a discussion with them in private about what I think they're doing wrong. I'm not going to criticize family because an outsider says I should. But I am not married to Miko Grimes, who has a history of statements and actions which would sorely test my commitment to handling family business behind closed doors.
Miko Grimes, the wife of former Miami Dolphins and current Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback Brent Grimes, blasted Miami brass on Monday, using anti-Semitic language that she later tried to clarify. In a tweet referencing Dolphins owner Stephen Ross and executive vice president of football operations Mike Tannenbaum, Miko Grimes tweeted:

Gotta respect ross for keeping his jew buddies employed but did he not see how tannenbaum put the jets in the dumpster w/that sanchez deal?

Reached by the Tampa Bay Times, Miko Grimes remained adamant that the insult was only directed at two people and that no one else should be offended by what she said. "What would I have against Jewish people?" she wrote to theTimes in an exchange Monday afternoon. "Why is this the first time I'm being called anti-Semitic, as big as my mouth is, if I really have an issue with Jewish people? Is anything I said false? Do Jewish, Catholic, Christian and frat brothers, etc. hire their own people? … I was intending to offend the Dolphins, specifically Stephen Ross and Mike Tannenbaum. Anyone else that chooses to dive in front of those bullets is their own fault."

Asked about the insinuation that someone would get a job only because of religious ties, she did not back down from her stance. "If you are a GM in the NFL and you happen to be Jewish, nine times out of 10 you will get another job if fired because the majority of the owners are Jewish and 'rumor has it' Jewish people take care of their own," she wrote. "I'm actually quite envious of them. I think it's dope!" The comment was picked up by several national sports sites and ESPN, and the nature of the "Jew buddies" comment has relevance with the Bucs because the Glazer family, which has owned the team since 1995, is Jewish. Bucs co-chair Bryan Glazer last year donated $4 million to a new Jewish Community Center in West Tampa that will carry his family's name. The Bucs were aware of the comment Monday but had no immediate response.

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Leaving aside the substance of Miko Grimes' comments for now, statements attacking alleged Jewish excessive clannishness are indeed often meant and experienced as anti-semitic insults. There's no way that an adult does not know that in 2016. And even if Miko Grimes didn't mean it that way and (insert eyeroll) was just trying to start a serious conversation about (ahem) having a more diverse hiring profile in the NFL, using the term "Jew buddies" isn't the way to go about that. This is especially the case when her husband's new bosses, the people who sign his checks, happen to be Jewish. This isn't the first time that Mrs. Grimes has had some outrageous stuff to say. Her self-described big mouth is part of the reason her husband now works for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers instead of the Miami Dolphins. But this is the big leagues. Racial comments and slurs are not exactly unknown in professional football, in the locker room or out of it. NFL owners and for that matter players can be quite tolerant of bad behavior or loose talk provided they believe that a player can help the team win. Just ask Riley Cooper.  However Brent Grimes is on the downside of his career. He's not as quick or as fast as he used to be. He will likely soon transition out of the NFL. While I wouldn't say Grimes is a marginal player I would say he's at the point where a team might think twice about adding him and his loose cannon wife to the payroll. The competitive benefit might not outweigh the off field headaches. I don't think that the NFL or the Bucs can or should fine Brent Grimes because of what his wife said. She's her own woman. She doesn't work for the NFL. But NFL or not, making public derogatory comments about your spouse's new boss's ethnicity or religion is just not a very smart move in any business setting. Now every relationship is different. We don't know if Miko is speaking for herself or if she's saying things Brent wishes he could say. If I were Brent at the very least I would probably have a short blunt conversation with the wife on things we don't say in public.

What's your take? Should people be responsible for their spouse's statements?

Jayru Campbell Arrested

There was a lot of talk recently about whether or not Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman is a thug. I don't think he is. Generally speaking most thugs, in the most basic understanding of the word, don't attend Stanford or score 1400 on their SAT's. My snobby class bias aside though more importantly I think that your actions, not your words, hair style or skin color make you a thug. Speaking loudly and animatedly without cursing, about your success over a rival player after a big win does not a thug make. See a thug could be someone who body slams a school security guard. That would be Cass Tech QB and Michigan State University (MSU) verbal recruit Jayru Campbell, who was arrested for his actions in the video below. The security guard is of course somewhat fortunate to be alive as getting body slammed on a hard floor without any protection can lead to all sorts of bad outcomes, especially if your head impacts the floor as it did here. I didn't attend public schools until high school and certainly did not attend Cass Tech High School or MSU. Cass Tech has traditionally been considered one of the better public schools in Detroit but I've heard that in recent times (over the past 10-15 years or so) that's akin to boasting that you're the skinniest fat person at fat camp. My brother first brought this to my attention. He didn't attend Cass either. Smirk. Of course these things are not common but stereotypically this explains why people, black and white, racist or not, have been fleeing Detroit Public Schools. 

We hear a lot about about how certain people are improperly disciplined in schools and thus set up for a school to prison pipeline. That's true. A child who is boisterous, loud mouthed or questioning of authority isn't necessarily "disturbing the peace" or "special needs" or a "threat". The flip side of that though is that there are some children who are indeed threats and need to be removed from the school ASAP for the safety of others. Evidently Campbell was given second chances and missed them. So it is what it is. Of course in our society even where there is a video like this the accused is still presumed innocent until proven guilty. Just ask the cops who beat Rodney King. However, unless there is evidence that the security guard was assaulting Mr. Campbell or attempting to molest him or something like that I am not seeing how this ends well for Mr. Campbell. I think he gets expelled from school and convicted of any criminal charges. And I'm okay with that. I am both descended from and related to people who worked or still work in schools. I would hate to see something like this happen to them. Watch video below.

The quarterback of the Detroit Cass Tech High School football team has been arrested in connection with an attack on a security guard.

Jayru Campbell was arrested Wednesday by the Detroit Public Schools Police Department because of an incident that occurred inside Cass Tech at dismissal time. But in a departure from earlier DPS statements, district spokeswoman Michelle Zdrodowski said this afternoon that Campbell has not been charged, describing the earlier statements as a misunderstanding on the district’s part.

In an e-mail this afternoon, Maria Miller, a spokeswoman for the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office, said her office has now received paperwork on the case, but she cautioned against making any assumptions. “It would be premature to indicate what if any charges (we) will issue until we have reviewed the paperwork and a formal decision has been made,” Miller wrote in the e-mail.

Campbell, a junior, verbally committed to play college football at Michigan State, but commitments are nonbinding until national letters of intent are signed in February 2015. Per NCAA rules, college coaches are not allowed to comment publicly on unsigned recruits. Campbell committed to MSU in August, turning down scholarship offers from Alabama, Notre Dame and Wisconsin, among others. He is rated as a four-star recruit by rivals.com. The alleged assault marks the second incident in recent months involving Campbell, who was suspended from school and for the first game of the 2014 season for throwing a punch after Cass Tech’s state semifinal loss to Novi Detroit Catholic Central in November.

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Do you think that Cass Tech should expel Campbell?

Are you curious as to what Campbell's side of the story is? 

Should MSU reject Campbell because of this incident?

Would you be willing to hire/work with someone if you saw them do this?

Manti Te'o Girlfriend Hoax and Notre Dame

People will do anything to keep the hype going. That's the lesson I learned from the Manti Te'o story. Actually that's the second lesson I learned. The first lesson I learned about Manti Te'o was the one that Eddie Lacy delivered a few weeks back as he ran around, through, over and under Te'o in an Alabama a$$-kicking of the Notre Dame football team and especially of Te'o, whose job it was to stop the run. Ok well Eddie Lacy made Te'o look silly. But Lacy did that to a lot of people this year. No big deal, right? Te'o was still a character guy at a character school (Notre Dame) who had been through a lot of tragedy with his grandmother and girlfriend dying so close to each other (within 6 hours). Te'o was everything that was right about college football. He was classy, honest and hardworking. If he could persevere despite those body blow tragedies then surely we lesser beings could get off our keister, get out there and win one for the Gipper, right?

Well not so fast. Deadspin did some very basic fact checking of Te'o's story and started to find some discrepancies. The fact checkers found some very ugly and obvious discrepancies. Like no one had ever seen this Te'o girlfriend. Evidently Te'o had been dating Mr. Snuffleupagus. His girlfriend did not exist.

Notre Dame's Manti Te'o, the stories said, played this season under a terrible burden. A Mormon linebacker who led his Catholic school's football program back to glory, Te'o was whipsawed between personal tragedies along the way. In the span of six hours in September, as Sports Illustrated told it, Te'o learned first of the death of his grandmother, Annette Santiago, and then of the death of his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua. 

Kekua, 22 years old, had been in a serious car accident in California, and then had been diagnosed with leukemia. SI's Pete Thamel described how Te'o would phone her in her hospital room and stay on the line with her as he slept through the night. "Her relatives told him that at her lowest points, as she fought to emerge from a coma, her breathing rate would increase at the sound of his voice," Thamel wrote.
Upon receiving the news of the two deaths, Te'o went out and led the Fighting Irish to a 20-3 upset of Michigan State, racking up 12 tackles. It was heartbreaking and inspirational. Te'o would appear on ESPN'sCollege GameDay to talk about the letters Kekua had written him during her illness. He would send a heartfelt letter to the parents of a sick child, discussing his experience with disease and grief. The South Bend Tribune wrote an article describing the young couple's fairytale meeting—she, a Stanford student; he, a Notre Dame star—after a football game outside Palo Alto.

Did you enjoy the uplifiting story, the tale of a man who responded to adversity by becoming one of the top players of the game? If so, stop reading.

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I don't know why a grown man felt the need to make up a girlfriend that didn't exist and continue to claim things about her, even after by his own admission, he knew she didn't exist. That makes no sense to me. All I will say for sure that Notre Dame and Te'o are full of crap, as is the entire NCAA system but that's a different story.  I think that both Notre Dame and Te'o knew the value of a good story and decided to roll with it, regardless of whether they came up up with the original con or not. (and I think Te'o did) And all I know is that as a Michigan Man I couldn't be happier to see Notre Dame and Te'o revealed as the lightweight lackadaisical lying lowlife losers I always knew they were. Please read the entire deadspin article and weigh in. 

Questions:

Do you think Te'o is telling the truth about being conned?

Is it possible to fall in love with someone who never existed?

Why would Te'o lie?

Should this give NFL teams pause before drafting him?