1.27.2008

How can Neuheisel get a job?

I wondered this when UCLA announced the hiring of Rick Neuheisel. This guy left a trail of controversy at Colorado and Washington, neither of which have recovered from the messes he created, and UCLA (supposedly an elite academic institution) decides to give him a chance.

Now today's Seattle Times has a front-page story about Jeramy Stevens and his run-ins with the law, including allegations of rape while he was a football player for the Huskies.

Three questions:

  1. How can the University let something like this go on? Universities should financially be above that; that is, the negative publicity from criminals on campus should be a bigger detriment to financial contributions. As one of the commenters to the article said "is this really the type of person we want our sons and daughters to rub shoulders with?" Amen.

  2. Just how many chances does one get with our justice system? What the hell? I'm all for sympathy for the rare bad choice, but there becomes a time where the line is crossed. Jeramy crossed that before 2000. Maybe we need to hold our judicial system accountable. Clearly they are not deterring a known entity's behavior.

  3. At what point does our society use capitalism in a positive way to align rewards and punishment for ethics? My wife and I cancelled our Purdue athletic club donations after having some trepidations with head football coach Joe Tiller. Why don't more people do the same?



At least UW is standing behind Ty Willingham as he tries to clean up the Neuheisel mess. All indications are that the character of the program is leaps and bounds ahead of what Neuheisel created.

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