The Curse of the Ford Explorer Continues
It's been almost exactly 20 years since Maurice Taylor's Ford Explorer flipped over on Feb. 17, 1996, sending our basketball program into the depths. Bad news continues to plague the people who were in the vehicle that day:
Mateen Cleaves, the recruit who was out for a good time that night, was charged today with sexual assault, and the case sounds nasty.
Maurie Taylor was banned from the Michigan program for 10 years after being implicated in the Ed Martin scandal.
Louis Bullock suffered the same punishment - banishment for 10 years.
Robert Traylor died in 2011.
Only Willie Mitchell and Ron Oliver have escaped the curse. I have no idea what Mitchell is doing now, but Google says that after tranferring from U-M to UAB, he spent a lot of years bouncing around basketball's minor leagues and foreign leagues. I hope he's OK.
Ron Oliver appears to be doing great. He's currently the Director of Basketball Operations at Florida Atlantic after spending 15 years in various positions in the NBA and college.
Think of all the great mentors, coaches and players that come before you. People you respect for their life accomplishments and their character. The overwhelming majority of people who choose to honor someone by naming their child after them does so based on that respect and body of work. Surely Izzo considered his dad, uncles, grand parents, etc. in addition to people who taught him in basketball.
But, Izzo chose a kid from a troubled city, involved in the Ed Martin scandal, to be the namesake for his child. It is kind of a trailer trash type move when you think about it...
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Mateen and Izzo had great influences on each other and their families. Coaches develop bonds with players as if they were their own sons.
I 100% doubt Izzo and his wife Lupe were wondering if in 15 years Mateen would be charged with sexual assault and that maybe they should go with Bob instead.
Probably not, but Cleaves did get in trouble with the law a couple of times when he was at MSU.
18-22 year olds. I know and graduated with several, most of them never got in trouble again, some are doing time for stupid things they did as adults later in life.
You simply can't tell what someone's judgement is going to be latter in life when they have different priorities and different responsibilities from a 20 year old kid.
is an adopted son, his full name is Steven Thomas Mateen Izzo.
March 15th, 2016 at 11:37 PM ^
My 2nd born's name is Braylon
Actually Cleaves had legal issues while in college. They just didn't amount to anything because the angry midget ran east landfill back then too.
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If the Cleaves charges are true, he is not a victim of bad luck or a curse.
He's a victim of acting like an asshole.
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Considering Izzo's history of enabling and covering up sexual assault, I am not surprised that one of his graduates is in "trouble."
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SHAME!
The Ingham County Prosecutor cannot bail him out this time. Sounds like Mateen will have to find some of Izzo's legal dream team to help aquit him for this.
prosecuter literally cannot bail him out because he needs to be bailed out himself and is looking at a whole lot of prison time for his sexual misconduct issues.
Don't say mean things! Mateen Cleaves came back in the NCAA Finals with a sprained ankle! He's a hero!!
(I remember at the time wanting to break the TV in the pub I watched that game at, while the announcers were felating Cleaves for playing on a sprained ankle. How many people have played competitive basketball on a sprained ankle? Just about every person who ever played competitive basketball. And who would not get back on the floor to finish an NCAA Final game? Nobody who ever played competitive basketball.
But the announcers acted like he was a demigod. I hope the allegations aren't true, but Cleaves has had a tremendous amount of smoke blown up his ass over the years. That certainly can lead to a sense of entitlement.)
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March 15th, 2016 at 11:34 PM ^
You mean he wasn't worth the 422 points he scored in his single season for the Pistons? Couple this with the 139 turnovers and 153 personal fouls and you have a draft bust. At least he had that one blocked shot going for him.
I'd like to see somebody do an analysis to see who's had more players or former players arrested - Tom Izzo or Urban Meyer.
March 15th, 2016 at 11:30 PM ^
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He’s been out of the program so long, this doesn’t hurt as much and its no Fab Five scandal.
RCMB is a cesspool.
Well, they're right. This is no Ed Martin scandal - rape is many orders of magnitude worse than teenagers accepting free gifts.
March 15th, 2016 at 11:32 PM ^
Isn't Cleaves on CBS? I thought that he was a decent dude from what I saw on t.v. Izzo owes him everything for falling into his lap and building his program.
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Why would anyone take TWO Latin courses? What's the matter with you and Ron Oliver?
I loved Latin - I took it in 7-9th grades, and it changed my life. I struggled with English grammar (like sentence diagrams and other useless crap) until I got thrown into the bonfire of declensions and conjugations. I picked up French, Russian and German pretty quickly after my Latin beatdown.
Didn't stop to apologize at all and this was someone you were cool with. He was alright until the 1997-98 season and I guess the 1 ppg average got to his head.
Mateen: "The chicken is in the pot."
Izzo: "Cook it."
I thought this was going to involve Firestone tires and massive litigation.
March 16th, 2016 at 12:29 AM ^
March 15th, 2016 at 11:03 PM ^
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I don't know what it says when two of the most disappointing athletes in the 90s (Willie Mitchell and Tyrone Butterfield) used to hang out together up on the 8th floor of South Quad.