The Enigma that is Taylor Lewan
I was enthusiastic, nay, unbelievably relieved when Lewan decided to return to Michigan for his final season. Not only would we have an anchor on an offensive line in transition, but we also would be privy to off-the-field behavior that was more entertaining than anything else. Exhibit A: twosie.
But as the season's coffin is finally sealed shut, I look back on Lewan's season with a combination of resignation and confusion. I've not really had to resolve this dichotomy with a player before, but after witnessing a series of behaviors on the field that made my head shake, my internal jury's out on whether or not Lewan's decision to return to Michigan was beneficial, for both himself and the team.
Besides the after-the-whistle behavior that almost got him suspended (including last night's run-in with a cheerleader, which was just a 22 year old dude hitting on a cute girl), is it fair to pin some of the offensive line's woes on a lack of guidance from the unit's veteran? And at what point do we, as fans, find the balance between celebrating a collegiate player's talent and capabilities and his behavior outside of it?
I don't know if this is a question that coaches have to process often. But it makes me wonder whether we - and Hoke - gave Lewan too much of a free pass for poor sportsmanship simply because he was the only thing keeping Gardner from getting his kidneys lacerated this season.
December 29th, 2013 at 1:35 PM ^
Agree. Glad he came back, glad he'll be gone because I don't think he really helps out much as a team leader. With that said, he was elected by the team to be a captain, that counts for something.
December 29th, 2013 at 12:40 PM ^
I think Taylor returned with the intention of helping younger guys develop, but when someone is a natural talent like he is, coaching may not be your strongest point. He will be drafted in the first round and do well. My hope is that this year was the low point of Hoke's tenure.
December 29th, 2013 at 12:43 PM ^
December 29th, 2013 at 1:21 PM ^
http://www.youtube.com/v/S8kL03le178
Judging by their reactions, I'd say he hit on her . Not sure where people are getting taunting from.
December 29th, 2013 at 1:32 PM ^
...is that about the 29th time this year that ESPN directors have tried to get isolation cameras on Lewan, to catch him doing something? Has there ever been a college football player who drew this kind of sub-narrative from broadcast producers?
Tiger Woods gets less coverage.
December 29th, 2013 at 1:33 PM ^
It looked more funny than nasty, that's for sure. I'd like to know what he said. Obviously more than one person has that information.
December 29th, 2013 at 1:37 PM ^
i bet he said something like "hey, you're hot". which she is.
December 29th, 2013 at 1:39 PM ^
Whatever it was they all seemed to think it was pretty funny. Certainly no one looked threatened or upset.
December 29th, 2013 at 12:44 PM ^
character. Probably not a captain, had he not come back. You can applaud his dedication to the school while still noting that his behavior helped dispell some of the lingering goodwill that remained to a really bad football team.
December 29th, 2013 at 1:32 PM ^
Well yeah, if he had not come back then no, he would not have been a captain - unless of course alumni captaincies were to have opened up on the team
December 29th, 2013 at 1:46 PM ^
have been a better way to put it, I guess.
December 29th, 2013 at 12:57 PM ^
December 29th, 2013 at 1:41 PM ^
he had one dumb incident against msu, which was likely a heat of the moment retaliation for past msu transgressions. i applaud him for coming back. he had a hell of a year, again. he was big man on campus (literally) for one more year. to paraphrase bo, you won't ever have a family-type atmosphere again. the nfl is a job.
December 29th, 2013 at 1:13 PM ^
Worst captain I've ever seen here. Go ahead and neg me.
I think Whitlock's column sucked and Lewan was absolutely NOT a problem as a player this season. But between the multiple police reports his name surfaced in, the terrible behavior last night and against MSU, saying "we won't get bullied" when they did, boldly saying we will never see that type of performance again after Akron and then back-tracking immediately after UConn. All of it. Just ... ugh.
Personally, my image of him would have been a lot fonder had he gone pro last season.
December 29th, 2013 at 1:32 PM ^
December 29th, 2013 at 1:43 PM ^
"underachieving" - dumbest post on this thread
December 29th, 2013 at 2:00 PM ^
December 29th, 2013 at 3:22 PM ^
2nd team all american. one of us is wrong, and it's not me.
December 30th, 2013 at 11:11 AM ^
"If he wasn't on our team, everyone would agree he's a punk."
So if we didn't get to know him a bit over the course of 4 years, we'd slap a lazy, dickish label on him from our couches?
Your statement is probably right -- if he wasn't on our team, we'd probably think he was a punk. But that doesn't support that he's a punk; it supports that sports fans can be smug assholes that draw conclusions based about kids with virtually nothing to back it up.
December 29th, 2013 at 1:41 PM ^
I'll take 85 Taylor Lewans over 85 Mario Manninghams, who leave early for the NFL. I don't know, but I expect that Lewan's thinking may have been, The guys on this team are my friends; my best friends, and maybe the best friends I will ever have. They want me here, and they want me to be their captain. I am having more fun playing football in Ann Arbor, than I ever will in the NFL. It's a long life to live, and I will never again have the chance to play another year of football for Michigan. I can stay one more year, and finish my degree, nice and neat. Like a real college career. Get a degree from Michigan. Yes, there is a physical risk (for which they tell me I can be insured), but on balance this is what makes me happy...
I want 85 guys like that. I particularly want 85 guys who are all-conference position players.
December 29th, 2013 at 1:49 PM ^
edge to any comment you make, huh Section? Tiger Woods, Mario Manningham. . . you undermine your own posts with such crap. We come to take it for granted, and write you off a little from the start.
December 29th, 2013 at 2:10 PM ^
It's really not a surprise with that guy, is it?
December 29th, 2013 at 2:43 PM ^
The thread is about Taylor Lewan. And who is a better exemplar of the player jumping early to the NFL in the past ten years, than Manningham? Who? Name somebody, who I should have used as a better example of the point I was trying to make. And no, you can't use Jason Avant, who I have repeatedly gushed praise for as my favorie Michigan football player of the 21st century.
And too many other places for which to paste links.
"A Heisman Trophy for character" is what I wanted for Avant.
And just because you seem so dense, I need to explain to you that my analogy to Tiger Woods actually put Woods in the "victim" role in relation to the snoopy on-course high-def television cameras that pick up a hundred times more supposed rules violations by Tiger, than anyone else on tour, simply because they are all following Tiger. It has become such a well-understood phenomenon that the PGA Tour and the networks have given it some extensive thought, as has Tiger.
The MGoBoard is no place for racism; and it is no place for low-grade racial scolding either.
There is no reason whatsoever that I should suffer insults like "racist" at this site. I won't tolerate it.
December 29th, 2013 at 3:00 PM ^
Section 1 preaches pet issues that belie some personal politics, but nothing warranting that attack in regards to comments in this thread. He's earned whatever reputation he has, but I personally don't remember racism ever being part of that.
December 29th, 2013 at 3:34 PM ^
I went back and downvoted all of my detractors.
December 29th, 2013 at 5:01 PM ^
apologies. I have plussed Section One plenty of times when the whole board was riding his a**, too. But he dissed Mario Manningham and Tiger Woods in the same thread, and given his Al Sharpton and other past comments, it wasn't a leap.
Still, if he says I got it wrong, I take his word. Apologies, Section One.
December 29th, 2013 at 5:09 PM ^
I didn't "diss" Manningham. I used him as an example of a Michigan player who jumped early to the NFL. I asked you for a better exemplar. Did you think of one?
And I explained "Tiger Woods." I'll do it one last time. I didn't "diss" Tiger. I used Tiger as a comparative analogy to attention that ESPN has been putting on Taylor Lewan. Tiger, and Lewan, are both figurative victims in my analogy. There wasn't even the vaguest slight aimed at Woods.
Leave me out of your idiotic ramblings. I am not going to play nice with you, when you accuse me of racism. I don't know who you think you can run that on. Not me.
December 29th, 2013 at 3:42 PM ^
He made nothing about race. You did. All by yourself. Yep.
edit: usual broken threading, this wasn't in reply to section1
December 29th, 2013 at 3:47 PM ^
I agree. Lewan is a good player, but appears to be an oddball and very narcissistic in general. Those qualities dont make good leaders.
December 29th, 2013 at 1:33 PM ^
Lewan is not an enigma. He's a sociopath. Does it matter what he said to the cheerleader? When was the last time you saw an opposing player on any team intentionally go over to a cheerleader and say something to her? (Not to mention your team is getting its ass handed to it.) If an MSU player had done this it'd be reported in the Free Press. The guy is classless and displays all the signs of a sociopath. When he knows adults are listening he can be charming. But when he thinks he can get away with violence or vile stuff he tries to.
If I were an M fan I'd be happy he is leaving. The guy is bad news. And Gibbons, too. I hope his "family problem" worked itself out.
December 29th, 2013 at 1:47 PM ^
December 29th, 2013 at 1:57 PM ^
December 29th, 2013 at 2:04 PM ^
Does that make it so much better? He was in the middle of a game.
December 29th, 2013 at 2:15 PM ^
Your opinion doesn't matter here. I don't think you realize that.
December 29th, 2013 at 2:23 PM ^
Wow. You...Your...Just wow.
December 29th, 2013 at 2:33 PM ^
December 29th, 2013 at 2:31 PM ^
Some times these overlap, some times not. Lewan has one of them, but not sure about the other. In fact, the captains (Avery, Gordon, etc.) didn't seem to have any impact when the season started falling into the tire fire pit.
I think back to the 2005 7-5 team (probably as close to an under-achieving team as this one, given the expectations). That team had Mike Hart and Jake Long and David Harris and Lamarr Woodley, who during the OFF-Season after the bowl loss to Nebraska, took command during off-season work outs and changing the attitude of the team. That team, despite a tough finish, won 11 games. Hart and Long kept the team from totally falling apart after the Horror and Oregon massacre in '07.
I look over the current roster and see no one after Jake Ryan that can bring the PLUS factor (talent AND leadership). We need someone else, besides Ryan, who will step up and lead this team during the off-season.
Brian Griese was right at the banquet when he said: "Take ownership of your team. It’s the decisions you make on a daily basis that matter. This team doesn’t belong to Brady Hoke, as much as I love him. It belongs to you.”
December 29th, 2013 at 2:39 PM ^
December 29th, 2013 at 2:41 PM ^
Wow...if he's a poor representation of the University, then we have a lot of poor representatives. Why can't Michigan simply have a bunch of saints and Rhodes Scholars on the team? Is that too much to ask?
December 29th, 2013 at 2:52 PM ^
If the police report of his actions vis-a-vis Gibbons's accuser are close to accurate -- and I have no reason to believe that they aren't -- then I'd just as soon Lewan not be affiliated with the same university as me.
December 29th, 2013 at 2:55 PM ^
December 29th, 2013 at 3:08 PM ^
What looks to my untrained eye to be an actual police report -- without scare quotes or anything -- describes the actions of a man purported to be Lewan. These actions include the intimidation of an alleged rape victim, through the particularly noxious (even if just rhetorical) use of the threat of further rape as a cudgel.
Not all crimes get prosecuted, and not all grossly immoral acts are crimes. I acknowledge my distance from the situation, and I'm open to updating my priors under some new evidence/argumentation. But as things stand now, I'll be happy to see Lewan leave.
December 29th, 2013 at 3:24 PM ^
your "untrained eye." You really think that every major media outlet just simply ignored the story?
December 29th, 2013 at 3:26 PM ^
Lewan didn't communicate a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g to the purported sexual assault victim. He didn't know her, judging by the police report, and never spoke to her or emailed her or had any other contact with her, and when he encountered a group of people including some athletic coeds, he asked if one of them was the accuser (she wasn't).
So Lewan didn't know what the purported victim even looked like, much less engaging in any "intimidation" of her.
I know that if I had a friend who I knew was being falsely accused of a crime, I'd feel less than generous toward the accuser. This seems to be the case with Lewan. Lewan seems to have judged the case (no charges) correctly, for whatever that is worth (maybe not too much, but it matters not). I don't begrudge Lewan's feelings, especially since he never once communicated them to the person in question.
I feel very, very sorry for Lewan. All accross the internet, at the blogs of our football rivals, at the online screed known as "Washtenaw Watchdogs," even at the nation's garbage-pile "DemocraticUnderground.com" the real, serious lies have been propagated: that there was a rape. That it was covered up. That the investigation was foiled. That Lewan threatened a rape victim with a repeated rape.
It is amazingly shameless garbage.
I do hope that the Washtenaw Watchdog, Douglas Smith gets sued for defamation.
December 29th, 2013 at 3:55 PM ^
A couple points:
-While I acknowledge no first-hand knowledge of the events, it seems as though you might want to refrain from claiming that no prosecution implies no rape. It doesn't exactly help with one's credibility.
-I was never under the impression that Lewan made his threat directly to the accuser. "Tell your friend that I'll rape her" still seems to lack a certain...moral clarity. Perhaps he was acting out of loyalty to a friend that he truly believed was falsely accused, and perhaps he would have phrased his threat differently upon reflection. Neither consideration remotely excuses his behavior.
December 29th, 2013 at 4:10 PM ^
The football players aren't the ones dwelling on this four-year-old story. They let it go. There is one real, true outrage in this case, and it is the worldwide 'net-based broadcasting of allegations (not police or prosecutorial allegations) that a Michigan football player was a "rapist" and that Taylor Lewan "intimidated" a complaining witness and threatened a rape. Those assertions are falsehoods.
The real malignancy in this entire case is not any one of the football players; and it certainly is not the purported victim. I got the strong impression that the complainant was honest with the police, and that her honest confusion and the vagaries of the incident all dictated against any prosecution. In the end, as far as I can tell, she did not stretch any testimony to make a case against the accused football player.
No, the real malignancy is Douglas Smith, the Washtenaw Watchdog. Virtually every internet meltdown over this story all links back to that blog.
Inappropriate language used by Taylor Lewan among his friends and acquaintances is a whole lot of nothing compared to his being savaged in national media as quasi-criminal.
December 29th, 2013 at 4:04 PM ^
A police report is simply a recording of what is told to a police officer by a witness. It is, by definition, hearsay. The contents are obviously troubling, but don't mistake the fact that it is in a police report with the fact that is necessarily true.
December 29th, 2013 at 2:56 PM ^
December 29th, 2013 at 2:56 PM ^
December 29th, 2013 at 2:56 PM ^