MaizeAndBlueWahoo

May 3rd, 2010 at 7:19 PM ^

Bang on.  You don't even need the ACC.  Lacrosse player charged with violent crime = Duke, and the comparisons will start.  It's too emotional a case and the media too interested in attention-grabbing soundbites - whatever gets the ratings or the hits - for anyone to step back and note the differences.

I hope our administration has leveler heads than that and doesn't allow the Duke case to become a precedent.

dakotapalm

May 3rd, 2010 at 5:49 PM ^

Especially in tragic cases like this one, it is sad that so much of media today is distilled to  thrashing about loudly with kitchen utensils in an effort to garner attention. It seems whoever is drumming the loudest gets the most attention. Obviously, attention equals viewers/readers and that equals money.

Because of that, very few "journalists" will treat the story, the families or the teams with the respect  and sobriety they deserve.

Big Boutros

May 4th, 2010 at 1:27 AM ^

I went to St. Albans; Landon is a big athletic rival of ours in the IAC. It would be pretty cheeseball of me to herp derp derp Landon is full of criminals, but this is now the third massive criminal investigation against one of its current or former students in the past few years. In 2003, eight seniors--some on Landon's lacrosse team--were caught cheating on the SAT. Then came the Duke lacrosse...thing; two players on Duke's roster were Landon grads. Now a first-degree murder charge. I would not want to be associated with Landon right now.

big gay heart

May 3rd, 2010 at 5:45 PM ^

You'll see the Duke reference because that's the last time that LAX was nationally (or otherwise) relevant. The human brain seems to be attracted to strands of commonality, even when those "bonding" items are peripherally related and most likely unimportant.

My perspective is that this is a non-story on the national level. However, when you say "college lacrosse," what do you think 90% of active news consumers in this country are going to think of? Given this and the fact that there is a link between the two cases (no matter how fleeting), what would you expect the media to do? I'm not defending the mass media here, just pointing out an easily predictive reality.

Unfourtunately, this whole thing is going to turn into a train wreck, given the Duke case's disproven "victim" and the socio-economic issues that underly lacrosse as a whole. Look at the ESPN article comments on the issue; they're absolutely mindblowing stupid.

Steve Lorenz

May 3rd, 2010 at 6:42 PM ^

Did Sharpton/Jackson ever apologize to the Duke players? Being serious, I remember there were a lot of people calling for them to make amends because of the guilty until proven innocent mentality they pushed through the media during the case. 

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

May 4th, 2010 at 2:02 PM ^

That's the chosen defense, but that tends to work better if you give someone a shove and they fall over and hit their head.  Not when you kick down a locked door, swing them around by the neck, bash their head on the wall, and for an encore, walk out the door with the victim's laptop in hand.  I don't think George Huguely will ever again see the light of day as a free man unless his lawyer is a very skilled orator.