I know I'm a few days late chiming in here, but sometimes a topic or a thought bounces around in your head for a while, then falls out fully formed, ready to post. That's what happened here with the whole punch fiasco at the end of last week's Oregon-Boise State football game.
I got really bothered the more I read about how Oregon did the right thing in suspending LaGarrette Blount for the entire season after Blount decked opponent Byron Hout with a punch after the final whistle of last Thursday's game. (BSU won 19-8. Insert your personal celebration/lamentation here.)
No, the only thing the Ducks' athletic braintrust did right was allow him to practice all year so he could still pursue the career he came to college to, well, pursue.
Yeah, Blount's nominally a political science major, but with the kind of season he had in '08, 17 touchdowns and over 1,000 yards rushing, he was on track to join the NFL after this year, barring injury. (Little did we suspect the nature of the injury in question.)
I got really bothered all weekend by people saying he got what he deserved. Does he have anger management issues? Seems to. Does he deserve to be suspended? Oh yeah. Does he deserve to have his livelihood threatened? No.
Before you go all "he got to go for school for free, stop defending his indefensible actions" on me, realize two things. First, his scholarship has nothing to do with my point: Threatening his career is too harsh of a move. And then, keep in mind I'm not defending his violent act. What an idiot. Probably. (More on that in a moment.)
As the weekend dragged on and more folks chimed in, I got really bothered by the assumption that Blount's retaliation, for whatever Hout did and said to him, was disproportionate. It may well have been. The dude might just have lost his temper because that's what he does, and he can't control himself, and that's what his upbringing and his nature saddled him with.
Or he could have been enraged by racial slurs, ten dirty cheap shots throughout the game, a boatload of comments about his mother's sexual preferences... or two out of those three. In that case, I have no problem whatsoever with him suckerpunching the offender/s.
It gnaws on me that I'm seemingly the only one who thinks that way. But then again, let's not forget I AM morally and intellectually superior to the entire living population of humankind, and you should count yourself privileged just to be allowed to read my blog. So there.
Anyway, it sure looks like Oregon suspended him for the whole season to save face. 'Cause it's the best PR move for the university. Restoring his ability to practice is admirable, because it allows him to maybe get a shot a playing pro ball, but even that is insufficient. I'd sit him three games and suspend him in advance for any bowl game/bowl trip the team earns. That way the consequence hangs over him the whole year, removes a known hothead from your year-end celebration, and he still gets a chance to redeem himself on the field in the meantime. But that's just too reasonable of a solution.
P.S. If you want to get into the whole race aspect of this, which I don't, feel free to click here, which takes to a discussion on blacksportsonline.com of said punch, and of course, the video thereof.
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