The Dantonio Double Standard
Last year, Glenn Winston put a hockey player in the hospital, costing him a whole year, and injured a second bystander. Neither victim did anything to provoke the violence, and Winston was fortunate to plea-bargain himself down to a misdemeanor and six months in jail. Mike Rosenberg on that:
Plus, people forget this: Winston was convicted of a misdemeanor. If anything, his sentence (six months in jail) was excessive for a misdemeanor. So I understood why Dantonio reinstated Winston this summer. Yes, it looks awful now. But it made some sense this summer.
"Excessive for a misdemeanor." Rosenberg is downplaying a scary, dangerously violent incident because he doesn't understand that a misdemeanor basically means the jail sentence can't be longer than a year. Six months in jail might be excessive for pot possession. It doesn't seem excessive for endangering someone's playing career.
Remember that Rosenberg wrote an "I'm just sayin'" column after Justin Feagin's situation, citing Rodriguez's decision to recruit linebacker Pat Lazear as evidence Rodriguez doesn't care about the character of his players:
The fact that Rodriguez was recruiting Feagin to West Virginia is telling because Rodriguez took considerable heat for some of his recruiting choices in Morgantown. Most noteworthy: Rodriguez signed linebacker Pat Lazear to a letter of intent even though Lazear had been accused of orchestrating an armed robbery of a Smoothie King store.
"That was a situation that was cleared up before he left high school," Rodriguez said Monday.
Well, that depends on your definition of "cleared up." Lazear pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail and received a 10-year suspended sentence for his part in the robbery. He also was sentenced to 30 days of house arrest and 150 hours of community service. And in a previous incident, Lazear had been found guilty of using a stolen credit card.
I guess you could say his situation was "cleared up."
Lazear has not been in trouble at West Virginia and is on the academic honor roll. That same column cites Feagin's high school coach saying that Feagin hadn't been in trouble there only to dismiss that. Rosenberg's thrust is that Rodriguez should have known better than to recruit Justin Feagin, and should never have gone near a guy with nothing on his record other than a dropped misdemeanor and some traffic tickets. If Rodriguez didn't know Feagin was a bad guy, it was because he didn't care to know. The upshot: Rodriguez is unethical.
Here's a similar conversation in the Winston case:
MARK DANTONIO: Are there any issues with this Winston guy?
MARK DANTONIO: Well, he beat up two innocent people, putting one of them in the hospital.
MARK DANTONIO: What's that? I can't hear you. You must be breaking up.
MARK DANTONIO: We're not talking on a cell phone. I am you. We're having a schizophrenic episode. You're talking to yourself.
MARK DANTONIO: I am very public about my faith!
And yet reinstating this guy "makes some sense." The double standard could not be clearer.
Is there any question that Rosenberg would be calling for Rodriguez's job if 15-20 Michigan players had beaten the hell out of innocent bystanders for the second time in two years? Michigan State has had 20% of its entire team involved in unprovoked violence against other students for two consecutive years.
Rosenberg can couch his eminently reasonable opinion in eminently reasonable columnist terms, but the bias is screaming. Mark Dantonio's got a hell of a jaw and a bible on his desk. He's also in charge of a bunch of thugs, and got a Michigan State student injured and, likely, his university sued. This is enough for Rosenberg to gently suggest that Dantonio might need to get his team under control—oh, really? Meanwhile, Rodriguez correctly judging the character of Pat Lazear and immediately dealing with the Feagin situation is enough for the "win at all costs" headline.
This is the fair and balanced person the Free Press thought they'd have investigate the Michigan football program.
More about this on the message board.
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At times, it might be justified - most UM fans would be harping on the Feagin story more if it happened at OSU, FSU, MSU, USC, etc., and if the sexual assault charges turn out to be true, then the player and the coaching staff deserve some of the criticism that will be heaped upon them. Sure, some UM fans want to stick their heads into the sand and ignore the reality surrounding this team, but most sophisticated fans are aware enough to accept that the program has seen better days.I'm confused as to what reality we as UM fans are ignoring? Certainly the program from a performance perspective has stuggled under Rodriguez's tenure thusfar. I also think most fans would be willing to accept some level of criticism levied against UM and Coach Rodriguez for how the team has stuggled these past couple of years. We may not like speculation about long-term implications or whether Rodriguez will be successful at Michigan, but I think those criticisms and questions are at least fair. Your comment, though, suggests that we as fans are ignoring a complete trampling of ethics and values within a Rodriguez-led program, which is what I think most of us find outrageous and unfounded. I still challenge anybody to illustrate how that is the case. So far there has been no evidence of Rodriguez willfully recruiting a "bad kid" just because that player would help him win. The players who have stepped out of line under his charge have been dealt with swiftly and without compromise. Still, the media seems to take delight in portraying Michigan as having compromised it's image in the interests of winning and this is what infuriates me as a fan. If you compare Rodriguez to Dantonio, the coach I see who is more willing to overlook poor behavior seems to be Dantonio. The fanbase sticking it's head in the sand and not wanting to see the reality of the situation of their program is MSU, not U of M. Mark so far is getting a free pass though because he is beating Michigan, but he hasn't done much else. What happens when the Michigan victories dry up?
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December 26th, 2013 at 1:51 PM ^
And now Bullough.
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