Embry and Masoli/KVAL

“So when my little brother comes to visit in April, does this mean I can take him to the Eugene prison to get his football signed?”

That was what my friend’s Facebook status read today. That particular person is from the state of New York, only further proving that the rest of the country thinks our football team is a bunch of losers.

Jeremiah Masoli plead guilty today, as I am sure you are all aware of. What does this mean now, as far as our football team goes? To be honest, I don’t particularly care (blasphemy!) What I am worried about, however, is the strain this puts on our school and our surrounding community. The comparisons have been ample, so I won’t go into depth here, but I assume the coming wave of displeasure will feel much like it did around the summer of 2003.

Is it too cliche to wonder about the sense of “entitlement” our athletes have, what with the lavish surroundings Uncle Phil surrounds them with?  Masoli ran into legal trouble in high school, and the fact that he was willing to again commit a crime–this time with so much more to lose as an adult and as the face of a team that is sponsored by the world’s largest shoe company–is absolutely inexplicable.

There are so many consequences to Masoli’s actions, much farther reaching than I’m sure he’s imagined up until now. The state of Oregon, Eugene, even Phil Knight’s contributions to the University could be affected Masoli’s lust for musical instrumentation.

I’m also curious about how the rest of the student-athletes feel, especially from the football team. I highly doubt any of them would talk (for “brotherhood” or from simply being muzzled by the AD) but I’m sure that many of them, upstanding individuals, feel like they are now unfairly painted with the same colors as Masoli, James, Beard and Embry.

Good thing Spring Break is coming up. We all need some rest from this insanity.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 20:27 by D and is filed under Crime, Sports, University. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.