Maryland AD paid for football players' sexual misconduct legal defense

Submitted by ish on

http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/24458938/former-maryland-ad-used-school-funds-defend-players

insert gif of constanza saying "was that wrong?  should i not have done that?"

ish

August 24th, 2018 at 10:54 AM ^

darn it: AD, not MD.  here's the link that i think will appear as an actual link:

http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/24458938/former-maryland-ad-used-school-funds-defend-players

ndekett

August 24th, 2018 at 11:10 AM ^

What the fuck? When impermissable benefits meets abhorrent behavior...

Also, here come the pigs - oinking about lying women again trying to get money and status by accusing athletes. Hopefully that narrative gets seen for what it is very soon: an embarrassing cliche that enables the continued behavior of weak men.

Mr Miggle

August 24th, 2018 at 1:57 PM ^

There were no impermissible benefits here. Schools are allowed to pay lawyers for athletes for hearings that could endanger their eligibility.

This is all some internal Maryland beef. The AD was accused of not following their rules for choosing counsel. Others are disputing that he did and that's basically it. It's exposing dysfunction at Maryland, but it hardly strikes me as any kind of a scandal.

 

ijohnb

August 24th, 2018 at 11:16 AM ^

I am all out of outrage.  I will stock up over the next month or so to be adequately outraged at the next outrage but my reserves are very depleted right now.

I really can't wait until they kick things off this weekend with the literal worst slate of warm-up games that I have ever seen.

lhglrkwg

August 24th, 2018 at 11:47 AM ^

As someone else pointed out yesterday, the Big Ten (and esp. the east) has total lost its moral high ground. SEC bag men are just paying guys for their talents in order to win football games. The Big Ten East covers up all sorts of awful stuff to try to win football games

Mr Miggle

August 24th, 2018 at 12:03 PM ^

The SEC wishes their only issue was bagmen.

One of their star players is Jeffrey Simmons. Just this week one of Butch Jones' former players made serious charges against him while at Tennessee.  Also this week, a TX A&M player accused the coaches of cheating and having trainers mistreat his injury.

There's always more, but they must be glad the Big Ten is taking the spotlight. Honestly if this Urban Meyer scandal was taking place at a school like Arkansas, without a very high profile coach, we'd hardly be paying attention.

LSAClassOf2000

August 24th, 2018 at 11:33 AM ^

Fixed the title, with some noted difficulty - the first time, it only fixed the link but not the title. Don't ask me how that happened, because Drupal is basically becoming HAL at this point and it is beginning to freak me out. 

DamnYankee

August 24th, 2018 at 11:48 AM ^

You'd think Damon Evans would've learned his lesson.  He was the Assistant AD down here at UGA when he got caught with his pants down with a woman (other than his wife) in his car and was relieved of his duties.

SAMgO

August 24th, 2018 at 11:56 AM ^

The Big Ten East will out-scandal any division in college football. It's kind of insane actually - this doesn't even have anything to do with the Jordan McNair disaster and it's still worthy of widespread derision. What is wrong with the culture at these schools?

Milk

August 24th, 2018 at 12:22 PM ^

Their legal defense was either coming out of UMD's budget or the state of Maryland's budget (via a public defender). I don't see how you could possibly get worked up aboit this.

Mitch Cumstein

August 24th, 2018 at 2:30 PM ^

I agree with this take.  In the absence of athletes making actual money (like they should be able to), it seems reasonable that they do get access to non-monetary benefits that other students don’t. Legal council seems like a good one. As far as I know, even men accused of sexual misconduct still have the right to a professional legal defense. So I’m not sure why there is any #outrage at all over this.

Mr Miggle

August 24th, 2018 at 2:45 PM ^

It wasn't a criminal case. This was a university investigation that led to one of the players getting expelled. NCAA rules permit the school to pay for legal counsel in such cases. The only improprieties alleged are the AD not following the school's procedure. The AD is long gone.

There's really nothing to see here unless you're concerned about a little internal strife at UMD.

superstringer

August 24th, 2018 at 12:31 PM ^

Hang on, there is another side to this, and it's even WORSE for Maryland.

I live in DC area and was listening to John Feinstein describing all of this with the Sports Junkies, two of whom are UMd grads, these guys are all super-plugged into UMd.  Here's what really might be going on.

The current UMd admin has been regularly trying to throw shade on Kevin Anderson for a while, for no clear reasons since, like, the guy is gone.  So this is just an effort to distract attention from the current disaster they have.

The lawyer involved apparently said UMd's story, reflected in the ESPN article, is BS.  Apparently it was football staff who selected the lawyer and Anderson didn't step in, or just signed the checks not realizing, etc.  Something like that.  UMd is trying to blame Anderson as if somehow that is something they should be caring about right now.

Just more circle-the-wagon, MSU/OSU style.  Great effing conference we are members of.