A thread about uga

I see that a freshman WR at Bama has been arrested for sodomy, and though the school hasn't issued a statement yet, his name has been removed from the roster, and he is no longer on campus. I guess there is no "coach" Gannt at Bama to pay off the cops. Kirby needs to learn from this the proper way to handle things.
 
Supersize that order mutt said:
I see that a freshman WR at Bama has been arrested for sodomy, and though the school hasn't issued a statement yet, his name has been removed from the roster, and he is no longer on campus. I guess there is no "coach" Gannt at Bama to pay off the cops. Kirby needs to learn from this the proper way to handle things.
Click to expand...
Arrested for sodomy….
 
Supersize that order mutt said:
I see that a freshman WR at Bama has been arrested for sodomy, and though the school hasn't issued a statement yet, his name has been removed from the roster, and he is no longer on campus. I guess there is no "coach" Gannt at Bama to pay off the cops. Kirby needs to learn from this the proper way to handle things.
Click to expand...
is sodomy still illegal there? I guess Va Tech won't be joining the SEC anytime soon ....
 
Supersize that order mutt said:
I see that a freshman WR at Bama has been arrested for sodomy, and though the school hasn't issued a statement yet, his name has been removed from the roster, and he is no longer on campus. I guess there is no "coach" Gannt at Bama to pay off the cops. Kirby needs to learn from this the proper way to handle things.
Click to expand...
He was a walk-on. If he was a star starter, things would be playing out differently for sure.
 
Former Tech reporter Ken Suguira nails Kirby Smart in this article ---

Kirby Smart has pulpit to preach safe driving, but missing the opportunity
KEN SUGIURA BLOG
By Ken Sugiura
Sept 11, 2023

ATHENS – Georgia coach Kirby Smart has his reasons for not wanting to offer details about his one-game suspension of player-connection coordinator (and Bulldogs legend) Jarvis Jones after his Sept. 1 arrest for excessive speeding and reckless driving.
Jones was absent from the Sanford Stadium sidelines for Saturday’s game against Ball State, which Smart said in the post-game news conference was due to a one-game suspension.

One game seems light to me. A person in a position of leadership and influence on a team whose players had been cited or arrested for speeding and/or reckless driving 14 times since two members of the program were killed in a high-speed car crash Jan. 15 has to set a better example. In this specific instance, I don’t know that dismissal would have been an inappropriate outcome.

But, hoping to learn more about his reasoning for a one-game suspension, I asked Smart about the details of the suspension and why he settled on the length he did. For example, perhaps there were additional penalties that he didn’t mention initially.
“I’ll be honest with you, I talked about it the other day,” Smart said. “It’s a personnel matter. We decided as an athletic department and we’ve moved on.”

As a football coach whose job depends on his ability to win games and someone who doesn’t want to further embarrass a UGA legend who in July was selected into the athletic department’s circle of honor (termed “the highest honor a Bulldog can receive”), that course of action is logical.

However, that’s not the entirety of Smart’s identity. He is the highest-paid public official in the state of Georgia. He is the most visible representative of the state’s flagship university. He is the leader of a highly visible organization that represents the state and its 10.9 million residents. He is someone who routinely asks for the support of the team’s fans, who commit their money, time and emotion to the Bulldogs. He is a leader of a group of young men whose driving habits have constituted a safety hazard. Perhaps most importantly in this case, he is someone who leads a team that carries influence over many young drivers at a time when traffic fatalities are on the rise.
He doesn’t have to be more transparent about his prevention and disciplinary measures or use the massive platform his position and success have earned him to speak out against the dangers of reckless driving. But he can. Maybe he even should.

People like Corey Jarvis are looking to Smart for leadership. A football coach and athletic director at Lithia Springs High, he sees impressionable young people falling prey to the dangers of driving recklessly.
“I think with ‘The Fast and the Furious,’ and I think the guys going around and doing the drag racing and stuff, that’s kind of caught on and it’s making it real hard for these kids,” he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
He had a team member last year who couldn’t stop himself.
“We just got to the point where his mom was just like, We just need to take the keys. He can ride the bus,” he said.
Kudos to the young man’s mother. As Jarvis preaches safe driving to his team and tries to demonstrate that it’s a serious matter, he could use the example set by the leadership of the state’s most high-profile team – one that has demonstrated its issues with reckless driving and that is undoubtedly an influence on his players – that reckless driving is dangerous, unacceptable and will bring consequences.
“To me, those are the types of things that the kids really need to see,” Jarvis said.
Give Smart some credit for at least acknowledging that Jones had been suspended. But for the sake of a lot of people, including Jarvis and his team, he could have said more.
Janet Frick is another stakeholder who wants more from Smart. Frick is an Athens resident, a 26-year member of the UGA faculty, the mother of two UGA students and a past board member of the UGA athletic association. She has taught Bulldogs athletes, including football players, and is a dedicated fan of their teams.
“There is a huge concern among people in the Athens community about this continued issue from a safety perspective, from a team-culture perspective,” Frick told the AJC. “Everybody loves the Dogs, but I have heard a lot of people say this – and not everybody’s willing to say it publicly – but it’s impacting how people feel cheering for the team.”
After wide receiver Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint was ticketed for speeding three times in an eight-day period in May, Smart did apparently suspend him for the season opener against Tennessee-Martin but wasn’t as clear as he could have been.
“I don’t think I have to discuss that,” Smart said after the game when asked about Rosemy-Jacksaint not playing. “It’s one of those deals where we keep our discipline internal. Marcus knows why he didn’t play (against UT-Martin), hope we get him back.”
Again, he’s right. He doesn’t have to discuss it. He doesn’t want to further drag players who are young people who’ve made really poor decisions and already suffered public embarrassment. That’s admirable on Smart’s part.
On the other hand, they are young men who accept the adulation, publicity and money that comes with being a Georgia football player. They are fully aware that, of all sins, the one that will surely get their name on the ESPN crawl.
Driving at excessive speeds in a car made to do so in a place that appears safe for it is surely tempting. But it’s also entirely avoidable. After choosing to put people’s lives in danger despite what was presumably repeated warnings and personal knowledge of the risks, a one-sentence announcement that they’ve been suspended for one game for reckless driving doesn’t seem excessive.
And especially so when it can potentially be lifesaving. Parents of teenagers who worship the Bulldogs can point to Smart and his example to help justify their own discipline. High school coaches who believe a game suspension is in order for reckless driving can tell players (and parents) that if it’s good enough for Smart, it’s good enough for them.
It may well be that players have demonstrated significantly better driving habits in recent months. Hopefully so. It’d be great if Smart shared what has worked.
There are apps that parents (or coaches) can use to monitor the speed of their young drivers. Smart can make a PSA to educate parents about them.
The Georgia Office of Highway Safety is a partner of Georgia Public Broadcasting’s coverage of high school football in the state. GPB runs video features made by GOHS that educate teen and young adult drivers about the dangers of speeding, not wearing seat belts and distracted driving. They often include testimonials from crash victims and their families.
I can think of someone who has a story that is probably worth sharing, one that virtually everyone watching a Georgia high school football game would listen to.
Smart is a busy man. He has a million obligations. I can only imagine how heavy his heart is and that it’s probably uncomfortable or worse to discuss reckless driving and painful to specifically relive that tragic night.
There is no way to bring back the two young lives that were lost. But, as Georgia moves on, their families never will. Smart has an opportunity to honor them in a way that would be immeasurably more impactful and lasting than any championship trophy.
 
Update on one of the lawsuits as the cesspool.

UGA athletics, Carter respond to Georgia staffer’s lawsuit

Marc Weiszer
Athens Banner-Herald USA TODAY NETWORK

The University of Georgia Athletic Association and NFL star rookie Jalen Carter responded separately in filings last week in the state court of Gwinnett County to a lawsuit seeking damages by a Georgia football recruiting staffer who sustained serious injuries in the fatal crash that killed two from the program on Jan. 15.

UGA athletics is denying it should be held liable. It said Victoria “Tory” Bowles, who filed the lawsuit, and Chandler LeCroy had been out drinking for more than four hours in at least four downtown Athens bars including a strip club after a national championship celebration.

It says Bowles watched LeCroy drive a UGA-rented Ford Expedition recklessly in the lane of oncoming traffic in the early morning, but elected to remain in the car after stopping at a Waffle House before deciding to head to another on the east side of Athens.

UGA contends the two recruiting analysts knew the vehicle was to be used for transporting recruits and to drive home when recruiting activities required it such as to park and use the next day.

Bowles’ lawsuit filed in July contended that UGA athletics negligently entrusted the Expedition to LeCroy, who was the driver in a crash that killed Le-Croy and Georgia offensive lineman Devin Willock. It said it was aware LeCroy had at least four speeding tickets, including two “super speeder” violations on her record.

Bowles and offensive lineman Warren McClendon were passengers who survived the crash. Bowles sustained injuries to her spinal cord, fractured vertebrae and clavicle and a collapsed lung. She sustained a closed head injury and neurological damage that caused severe eye pain.

“UGAAA never implied or suggested that analysts could use the rental vehicles for purely personal activities, and it has absolutely never granted permis-

sion for analysts to drunkenly drive the vehicles or to race at unsafe speeds through city streets,” it said in its court response.

Police said LeCroy was driving with a blood alcohol level more than twice the legal limit when she was racing Carter at speeds as high as 104 miles per hour. Carter plead no contest to reckless driving and racing his Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk. He received 12 months of probation and had to perform 50 hours of community service.

“Ms. Bowles made the fateful choice to get in a rented Ford Expedition with an intoxicated Ms. LeCroy behind the wheel,” the UGA athletics response said.

Bowles lawsuit stated she was unaware entering the rented SUV that Le-Croy may be legally intoxicated.

Bowles was fired from her recruiting job in August, a move her attorney, Rob Buck, called “direct retaliation,” for the lawsuit.

The lawsuit also said Carter, a first-round pick by the Philadelphia Eagles in April, is also liable for “engaging in a grossly negligent joint enterprise-tandem driving/street racing.”

Carter contends, through his attorneys, that Bowles “failed to exercise ordinary care for her own safety when she voluntarily assumed the risk of harm by riding in an automobile being driven by an obviously impaired and intoxicated driver... whose negligence was the proximate cause of the subject wreck.”

The filing states Carter made no attempt to outgain, outdistance or prevent LeCroy’s vehicle from passing his vehicle. It also said Carter had no conversation with LeCroy about racing.

Carter also denies unlawfully leaving the scene of the crash. The filing says Carter stopped his Jeep after LeCroy’s vehicle left the road, exited the Jeep and walked to the scene of the crash to check on LeCroy’s condition and other passengers. Carter left the scene “when it was apparent that there was nothing he could do to help and that his presence was not required at the scene.”

The father of Willock is seeking $40 million in damages in a separate lawsuit whose defendants include the Georgia Athletic Association and Carter.

Breadman Jalen LLC is also a defendant in the Bowles lawsuit. That’s Carter’s company that handled his marketing and NIL opportunities.

The lawsuit is seeking $171,595 each from the UGA Athletic Association, Carter, Carter’s Breadman LLC, and the estate of LeCroy as well as attorney fees and additional unspecified damages.

“I think there has been a massive PR campaign supporting these two lawsuits to the detriment of the UGA Athletic Association and Jalen Carter and others named in the case without them having the chance to explain themselves,” Bill Cowsert, an attorney representing Carter, told the Athens Banner-Herald. “Jalen Carter is not to blame for this accident at all although he is heartbroken for his friends and athletic employees that were killed or injured in this tragic collision.”
 
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