Please explain this contradiction to me
I haven't been following this story until recently, but it seems like the Demar Dorsey situation and the Glenn Winston situation have a lot of parallels. I'm interested to hear this board's collective rationalization of how and why this Dorsey situation entails:
While the Glenn Winston situation represents:
Please enlighten me.
- The inspiring story of a young athlete struggling to overcome the bad decisions in his past, and;
- The inspiring story of a coach who had the guts and compassion to take a risk on a troubled yet promising young man.
While the Glenn Winston situation represents:
- The story of a piece of shit criminal athlete, and;
- The story of a corrupt "win at all costs" coach whose lack of integrity allows him to welcome piece of shit criminal athletes into his program.
Please enlighten me.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:34 AM ^
One of the people committed the crimes while he was a juvenile and the hope is that he has grown out of it. The other committed the crimes as an adult and it seems like he grew into it.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:58 AM ^
Glenn Winton was a leader. Demar Dorsey was a follower.
Glenn Winston inflicted physical harm on an individual, risking the victim's life. Demar Dorsey got caught up in the wrong crowd.
Glenn Winston served time. Demar Dorsey was a juvenile with a clean criminal record.
Glenn Winston walked out of prison and onto the football field. Demar Dorsey (if you read the Freep interview of his coach) paid for his actions.
Glenn Winston is a thug. Demar Dorsey was a misguided teen, and deserves a second chance and a fresh start.
February 5th, 2010 at 6:12 PM ^
One of the people committed the crimes while he was a juvenile and the hope is that he has grown out of it.
He was acquitted, thus no crime.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:34 AM ^
"the past" in Demar Dorsey's situation is a couple of years ago. "The past" in Glenn Winston's situation was that same year, 90 days of which he spent in jail.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:06 AM ^
You seemed to be on a hiatus, or at least I didn't see you posting much around here.
February 5th, 2010 at 1:04 PM ^
I decided to go back to school. Then between school, work and the way the season fell apart there was little time or motivation to spend time message boarding.
February 5th, 2010 at 2:15 PM ^
Are you still on The Fort?
February 5th, 2010 at 2:43 PM ^
I lurked a decent amount through the season and kept my account active up until my renewal date a couple weeks ago. But it was billed to my old card and I just haven't updated the information yet. I'm sure once spring practices get underway I'll make time to accommodate this board and that one.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:36 AM ^
One committed numerous criminal acts while enrolled at the university. The other, well...didn't.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:49 PM ^
Winston was not only enrolled at the school, but assaulted numerous students and peers of said school. He, as others stated, was also the leader of these groups that assaulted the students. He was not only destructive to himself, but the others who followed him and those who got in his way.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:37 AM ^
I think it's all a matter of degree. I don't know enough about Glenn Winston prior to his going to MSU to compare. I do think that people won't complain if Dorsey is kicked off Michigan's team if, next year, he punches a Michigan hockey player in the back of the head for no reason.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:24 PM ^
for having the balls to admit that he made a reasonable point.
Frankly, I don't really disagree with anyone's views, but I'm not a big fan of the double standard. If you believe in second chances, then the MSU ski mask gang, Carlos Dunlap, Alex Boone, etc., probably also deserve a second chance. It's pretty tough to draw a line in which Demar is distinguishable from the rest of the guys.
The most ironic one is using "time served" as the determinant. I think people can commit the same act and depending on their lawyer and their prosecutor, serve vastly different amounts of jail time.
Nonetheless, I also give props to people who suggest that the line should be drawn depending on the age at which the crime is committed. Though I can see some troubling cases under that standard, it's not entirely unreasonable, either.
So basically, +1 for anyone who can be consistent and keep their facts straight.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:32 PM ^
but I also believe you have to demonstrate that you've learned from your mistakes.
Dorsey's getting a second chance. Playing straight percentages, doing your penance and behaving yourself for 2.5 years after being picked up at 15 is a good start.
Winston got at least one second chance, too.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:55 AM ^
The story of a kid who was involved in non-violent crime, came to some agreement legally, did his penance, and kept his nose clean since, went to college.
VS.
A guy who seriously assaulted someone, came to some agreement legally, faced no repercussions after having rejoined the team STRAIGHT FROM JAIL, and did the same thing...again.
I have no doubt if Dorsey tries robbing a house, in Ann Arbor, that there will be a shit storm here, too. Both are chances. With what each did, Demar is the better chance to take. But if Winston had spent the next three years as an innocent, people would be "eh, didn't seem like Dantonio was serious about punishment, but he kept him on the straight and narrow. Good risk".
February 5th, 2010 at 10:39 AM ^
...but let me try to explain.
Dorsey: not convicted. In trouble 2.5 years ago. Nose clean since.
Winston: convicted of assault at while a player at State. Reinstated to the practice field the day he got out of jail. Rounded up a posse and did almost exactly the same thing that got him convicted in the first place, 90 minutes after the team's season celebration. Then he gets kicked off the team.
That pretty much covers it for me.
BTW, I don't think Dantonio is a corrupt, "win at all costs" coach. I think he gives guys who won't learn from them second and third chances because he's trying to be a good guy, though having them around has conveniently won him some football games. He's just a weak judge of character. A few more incidents like Winstons, and maybe he'll have a better sense of who deserves another shot and who will only learn from NOT having that second chance.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:15 PM ^
Doesn't the fact that Winston spent time in jail mean that he paid his dues? And if he paid his dues, shouldn't he be allowed to play football again?
I'm not trying to defend him, just asking a question that I find interesting.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:34 PM ^
It's good that you broke up the issue into two questions:
Q1: Doesn't the fact that Winston spent time in jail mean that he paid his dues?
Yes, and with "paying his dues" comes rewards- not being physically confined, ability to pursue an education, careeer, etc. In short, in exchange for "paying his dues," Winston was given back his "freedom."
Q2: And if he paid his dues, shouldn't he be allowed to play football again?
Not necessarily. Playing football is a privilege, not a right. And this is a school program, not an employer, so the standards applied are always going to be coach- and university-dependent. Theoretically, a kid could get kicked off the team for much less than a criminal conviction.
Remember that "paying your dues" simply means you get to reenter society. It does NOT mean you get to reenter society AND get back everything you had before you "paid your dues." There are consequences to convictions.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:43 PM ^
Paying your dues, to me, means that you do your time AND demonstrate that you've learned that you're not allowed to break the rules in our society. Winston did his time, but clearly didn't learn about the rules, since he went right back out and broke them.
And apparently that makes a difference, because apparently there aren't dues he can pay to be allowed back on the team this time.
February 5th, 2010 at 1:26 PM ^
I was just curious what people thought - by no means was I advocating for Winston. Same goes for tons of professional athletes - many teams won't touch a guy like Vick after what he's been through.
Just saying though, some guys, like Vick (IMO), appear to have paid their dues yet they don't really get a clean start. Maybe that's how it should be. Personally, I wouldn't really defend Vick. At the same time, though, he looks like a guy who's paid the price (jail time, tons of money lost, etc), yet he hasn't received a fresh start.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:53 PM ^
I think he paid his dues to society, but not necessarily to MSU and their student body. He assaulted a fellow student, which is and entirely different situation than anything Dorsey was accused of. He also didn't have to serve any type of suspension or additional discipline from Dantonio after he was released from jail. In fact, he left jail and went right to practice.
February 9th, 2010 at 1:50 AM ^
Just FYI, but Winston was suspended from MSU's football team for months during the 08-09 season before he was convicted of any crime.
G
February 5th, 2010 at 10:39 AM ^
was acquitted of one charge and had the other dropped.
Winston was convicted and spent time in jail for beating the shit out of a same school hockey player.
Dorsey's behavior while in Ann Arbor will determine if these two stories truly have parallels. Right now I think that comparing the two is a stretch.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:40 AM ^
Winston tried to hurt (or worse) a fellow student and athlete at MSU after he had already been in school and on the MSU team. He was SENTENCED to jail time for his actions and he was allowed back on the team with (seemingly)not strings attached.
DD was a juvenile, not living in EL, being sheltered by a coach and a team, but on the streets making the bad decisions only a 15 year old in that situation can make... the courts, after reviewing all his transgressions and alledged transgressions decided that jail time and convictions were not warranted and so he still has a clean record. Not to mention none of his bad choices included a violent crime on another person.
Not really similar at all.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:40 AM ^
Dorsey's incidents were in the past, and was only a juvenile at the time. Winston was in college and just starting his career following in Plaxico's footsteps.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:45 AM ^
Being enrolled in college vs. not being enrolled.
Should Dorsey do anything serious in college, then Rodriguez will, justly, take heat for it, just as Dantonio has taken heat for Winston (although the media was soft on him in my opinion, but whatever).
February 5th, 2010 at 10:51 AM ^
This is not a This vs. That situation. No one is comparing Dorsey to Glenn Winston. They are comparing him to Willie Williams - A highly rated recruit from South Florida and reporters found out late in the game that he had a record.
Therefore, Dorsey MUST be exactly like Williams!
February 5th, 2010 at 10:51 AM ^
Glen Winston was probably a bad comparison seeing as he was in college at the time of his transgressions. You could almost put any player who has had problems like that who was recruited by OSU, USC, MSU, Florida, etc in there to make your point. It used to be seen as horrible to recruit a player with a rap sheet if you weren't Michigan but now it's all about second chances. This fan base is totally two faced (myself included).
February 5th, 2010 at 11:40 AM ^
It reminds me of Feagin's recruitment, at least from the outside looking in. A young man with some decision making issues, late offer and OV in the recruiting cycle and again at a position of need.
I think the comments he has made in the various articles that have been linked are encouraging in regards to his future successes, but the same temptations can be found in Ann Arbor that he is leaving behind in Florida. I am always a sucker to root for the under dog and when you take his his situation into account, can't help be hope he finds success at UM.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:48 AM ^
The same temptations are around, but unless your major temptation issues regarding illegal things are with weed, it's a hell of a lot easier to stay out of trouble in a place like Ann Arbor than running with the crowd he did when he was 16.
What makes me wonder is that he hasn't gotten in trouble in the last 2+ years. Perhaps he realized he needed to cut that crap out or risk blowing everything - another arrest while he was being recruited almost certainly would have caused most schools to back off his recruitment. It probably helps that his cousin is already in Ann Arbor, his support system should be better for him in Ann Arbor. Especially when one hears Dorsey's comments on why he committed -- sounded like he was trying to make sure the bad influences of old were a long, long way away from him.
So let's hope this is another case like Pat Lazear where Rodriguez was right and the kid really did change.
February 5th, 2010 at 2:36 PM ^
It reminds me of Feagin's recruitment, at least from the outside looking in. A young man with some decision making issues, late offer and OV in the recruiting cycle and again at a position of need.Those "decision-making issues" you speak of were not known and could not have been known by RichRod (or IIRC Feagin's high school coach). I'm not going to defend Feagin and his troubles. But let's not pretend that those troubles were predictable by RichRod. They were not- his records were sealed, and nobody had knowledge of nor access to those records.
February 5th, 2010 at 3:47 PM ^
A sealed record would not hide an arrest, just the outcome of the actual case. To say RR "could not have known" is incorrect. Feagin's recruitment went very close to signing day, which provided some extra hurdles to jump over but it does not excuse RR from knowing Feagin's background. Is there actually a quote from RR saying he had no idea of Feagin's past or is that just presumed?
Now it would seem pretty obvious that RR knows how important character and background checks are to prevent making that mistake again. With Dorsey his past is public record, there is nothing that would prevent a thorough background check being completed, or RR from not knowing. In spite of Dorsey's past he was offered his scholarship, and welcomed with all the other recruits on NSD. So that either tells me that RR is extremely dense caring only about what happens on the field; or all the visits with the UM coaching staff provided proof that the Dorsey enrolling at UM was not the Dorsey who committed those crimes. I am of the opinion its the latter, but the two situations are very similar to me, and probably shows an evolution in RRs recruiting process.
February 8th, 2010 at 1:15 PM ^
A sealed record would not hide an arrest, just the outcome of the actual case. To say RR "could not have known" is incorrect...Is there actually a quote from RR saying he had no idea of Feagin's past or is that just presumed?Irish, this has been dealt with. To save you time, here's Brian's money passage dealing with it (emphasis and additions mine):
Christ. Rodriguez talks with [Feagin's HS coach] Willie Bueno, who says Feagin is a good kid without issues because he apparently believes it, and it's up to Rodriguez to "be sure" that this guy isn't lying to his face. Feagin mentioned a couple of issues in high school that "nothing came of"; as a juvenile he wouldn't have a record unless something extremely serious went down. Nothing did, so even if Rodriguez checked up on that supposed record it would come up clean. Rosenberg suggests that Rodriguez should assume every coach is a liar and undertake investigations of everyone so that a bad apple doesn't arrive. This is obviously infeasible. Hell, Lloyd Carr made that mistake at least 29 times in his career.Your argument sounds an awful lot like Rosenberg's, i.e. that Rodriguez should assume every HS kid and coach is lying about the past and thus RichRod "could have known" that a given kid was going to be a problem. That's stupendously unrealistic. I'd love to hear how you think Rodriguez "could have known" about Feagin's past if his own HS coach says there's nothing there and the kid admits to some issues that didn't amount to anything which in fact didn't amount to anything. How those facts lead you to a conclusion that Feagin was "a risk" or something, I'd love to hear.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:55 AM ^
the prevailing attitude on this board could be paraphrased as "criminals are criminals" and "criminals shouldn't get second chances"...
I guess it's not as black and white as that.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:02 AM ^
It's not even about that... Winston was convicted of a violent crime, and did jail time. Dantonio lets him back on the team without even a slap on the wrist. THEN he does the SAME F'ING THING!
Dorsey is never convicted, charged with non-violent crimes as a juvenile. He has not been under RR's watch and it is expected that if he screws up, he will be dismissed.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:02 AM ^
because they are generally non-falsifiable. But they are in this case demonstrably false. Indeed, the black-and-white contrast between good kids and bad kids is precisely what Drew Sharp was asserting and was being criticized for, on this board.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:14 AM ^
In the Bo/Mo/Lloyd era, if a kid got in trouble, he'd have a heavy penance (which often showing up to run the stadium stairs at the crack of dawn under the personal, watchful eye of the head coach) in addition to his duties to team and school to set himself right. This was never spoken about beyond, "Well, he doing what he needs to to show that he's sorry and wants to be here," but everyone knew. This seems to be true with Coach Rod, too. (See Boubacar Cissoko). It makes sense. The coach is saying to the player (and setting the image publicly): "You don't just hurt you (and, in some cases, the people you, you know, hurt.) You hurt the team and the institution. You have to pay an extra price to make that right."
What folks here have questioned, and for good reason, imho, was the appearance that Winston was allowed back onto MSU's team with no such consequences.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:12 PM ^
Agitprop, you need to walk this back, because Demar Dorsey is not a "criminal" in any sense of the word.
By equating him with a guy who actually is a criminal, well that's character defamation of some sort. I can never remember whether the internet constitutes spoken defamation ("slander") or written defamation ("libel"), so I'll leave it up to the lawyers here to figure just how you've defamed the character of a teenager. But congrats on being "that guy."
February 5th, 2010 at 10:57 AM ^
If you really needed this explained to you than I can honestly say MSU fans really are as dumb as people make them out to be. If you can't figure this out on your own, than it is pretty clear that you also would not understand intellegent discussion on the topic.
To make it short and sweet, there is no contradiction here. The two events are not really similar.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:57 AM ^
Winston was convicted of a violent crime; Dorsey was not. In other words, Winston was a documented adult criminal and Dorsey hasn't been convicted of anything. Winston literally wore an orange jumpsuit in the morning and an MSU practice uniform in the afternoon.
Since I answered your question, I would like you to answer one for me:
Are you a troll or just a moron?
February 5th, 2010 at 11:03 AM ^
Violent adult vs non violent kid.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:09 AM ^
Pose your questions again after Dorsey or anyone else nearly kills another student on our campus. When that happens, and when we welcome the convicted player back from jail to give our offense a boost, I think we should delve deeply into our hypocrisy.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:11 AM ^
If Dorsey had actually spent time in jail I do not think he would be on the team right now. And he certainly will not be on the team if he gets into any trouble while at school.
I've never heard of a team allowing a player to walk right out of prison and onto the field. That would not even happen in the NFL these days. Hell, I think any student (athlete or not) can be expelled for a felony conviction. I still don't know how D'Antonio got away with it.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:14 AM ^
He did spend time in jail.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:14 PM ^
Go ahead, neg me all you want. It's not going to stop me from posting an obvious fact. If your point was to discourage me from saying something that's true, it's not going to work. We're all better off for recognizing the actual facts that confine the arguments that we're making and work from there. The fact is that he did spend time from jail. If you have a problem with that refute it.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:23 PM ^
I don't think it necessarily means anything one way or another if a kid "spent time in jail." You can "spend time in jail" without actually being a "convicted criminal."
Sometimes we are uncomfortable with these distinctions, but no matter- nuance is what separates us from the Spartans animals.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:29 PM ^
I'm well aware of that. I was simply responding to this:
"If Dorsey had actually spent time in jail I do not think he would be on the team right now."
February 5th, 2010 at 1:41 PM ^
You're making a silly, nit-picking argument. Everyone who is wrongly arrested (not saying that was the case here at all) spends time in jail - VERY few people would judge them for that. At worst, the other poster misspoke. I know that you know that based on your post directly below this, so I'm not sure why you're baiting him.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:11 AM ^
The most obvious difference? Winston committed and was convicted of committing a violent crime. Demar Dorsey wasn't convicted of any crimes and never committed a violent crime.