As a true blue Michigan Man in a family full of Spartans, I have had to deal with a lot over the past two years. Win & Loss record aside - the healthy doses of Schadenfreude that my Spartan family members have been feasting on, whether warranted or not, have been absolutely served on a silver platter by the national and local Detroit media.
I'm not the type to play the media blame game - because let's face it, RichRod hasn't exactly flown under the radar with a lot of the off field incidents - but I truly do feel, as many of you, that the media has an agenda towards the Rodriguez program and an agenda to "prop up" the Dantonio program.
I'm not gonna make a ruling just yet, but this whole incident at MSU should garner a tremendous amount of attention and criticism in the local media (that's you, Freep.) If this incident happens in West Quad, Rich Rodriguez's face is all over ESPN and the Freep. Terry Foster, Valenti and every Detroit media lackey is calling for his job. Fact is, he'd probably lose it.
The MSU Spartan football players are involved in a mass, pre-meditated gang beatdown for the second year in a row. Although it hasn't been explicitly said, Glenn Winston, one of the original perps, is responsible again. Hindsight is always 20/20, but looking back, Dantonio's decision to keep him on the team was the wrong one - and he should bear the criticism and blame for this huge mistake.
Several years ago I witnessed a physical altercation (choking) in my workplace. This was an isolated incident, the perp was a friend and co-worker of all of ours, but my boss obviously had no choice but to dismiss the assailant. Because there was a previous incident, isolated or not, meant that he couldn't take a second chance, especially with physical violence involved. The legal implications were two great.
Every person reading this post knows that, if they or a co-worker were convicted of an assault and spent time in jail,the would spend exactly 0.00 seconds at their current job when they got back, They would definitely lose their job.
I'm not saying that Dantonio or the MSU administration are directly responsible for the beatdown of a few frat boy engineering students, but they do and must shoulder the blame. My hypothesis is that the reason Winston and Jenerette haven't been explicitly tied to the incident yet is that the MSU admin is buying time in order to cover their legal bases.
A "Yeah, we fucked up and let Winston back on Campus" admission would definitely bring tremendous heat onto the admin and Dantonio from a legal standpoint (I know this is a far stretch, but am I wrong??)
So, in closing, let's all make sure to keep an eye on the Detroit media and see what their reaction is to this incident. Anything short of "Dantonio made a big mistake and should receive much criticism" is unacceptable.
I doubt we'll see anything too extreme - c'mon, this is MSU - but the criticism must be levied and it must be drawn along...
Dantonio should have known about these kids when he recruited them!
Here's to a healthy serving of Sparty Schadenfruede for a Thanksgiving appetizer!
I was back in town for several days for the Purdue weekend. I have been out of Michigan for many years now. I forgot how much attention MSU gets in the Detroit area. By this, I mean generally positive attention. It is almost over-compensation to counter the MSU inferiority complex. I don't know if the other posters who live out of state agree, but I never hear anything about State anymore, positive or negative. Nobody cares about them outside of Michigan. So, while I really like Omaba's post above (and agree with it), I would not guage the likely lack of national attention on this issue as favoritism toward Sparty. The fact is, most people don't know or care about them elsewhere.