Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Update to Royce White Situation


Relax, spaz.

Here's a sampling of some comments at the gopher hole:

"Let's drop this guy"

"He is free to go to college elsewhere, we don't need this kind of crap"

"The neat thing is that even if you are an axe-murderer, if you've got the athletic talent there's always some coach who will give you another (and another and yet another) chance."

"The past is a great predictor of the future."

People. CALM DOWN. We don't even know what happened. There is no info on this, and people are ready to condemn White. This is knee-jerk speculation at best. Completely irresponsible idiocy at worst.

There are hardly even any rumors out there about this. The only rumor I've stumbled across is that he cheated in school. Who didn't? Do you seriously want to deny him entry to the U if it turns out that he copied off a friend's paper? Does that transgression mean to you that he is a problem child and a poor human being? Michael Beasley got kicked out of several different schools, and he's been nothing but a model citizen at Kansas State.

De La Salle has every right to kick someone out of school for whatever violation occurred against their honor code. I respect that, and I think it sucks that this happened, both for the Gophers and for Royce White, but it did, and it needs to be dealt with. The news has been out for less than four hours, and people are saying he's a waste of talent? He doesn't deserve a scholarship? Give me a fricking break. Christ, I hope he ends up somewhere else so he can thrive, not be stuck here with a fan base with people ready to crucify him and who will be at his throat at every little thing.

Can't you see it if he comes to the U? If he ever gets T'd up in a game, the idiots with this mindset will cry "I knew he had an attitude problem, he never should have been given a scholarship here" while if golden boy Hoffarber got T'd up it'd be because he shows such "passion" for the game. This is ridiculous.

So here's my advice:

1. Calm down.
2. Relax.
3. Try and keep some perspective on this.
4. If you can't do any of those, just shut up.

And some a-hole ran over my mailbox last night.

13 comments:

Dharma Bum said...

I have a friend who is a TA at the U. A student of hers took her final paper off the second entry in google last semester. She got an F on the paper but because her score was good going into it she still ended up with a C in the class. White will fit in there just fine.

Anonymous said...

I apologize about the mailbox, it came out of no where.

Theory said...

This quote is so true:

"The neat thing is that even if you are an axe-murderer, if you've got the athletic talent there's always some coach who will give you another (and another and yet another) chance."

I don't know what White did, so I'm not going to say anything about him, but for sports in general, that quote is true, and it pisses me off.

Anonymous said...

Too bad this isn't the first time he messed up. If this was a first offense, your reaction would be fine.

I'd like to think Minnesota would try not to become Bub Huggins era Sinsinatti. Suddenly with Tubby way too many people are willing to do way too much to win. Let's cut every scholarship player that isn't as good as we would like them to be while we are at it.

WWWWWW said...

Nobody said to go Bob Huggins style, but if you want to stay away from every kid with some questionable decisions in his life, you're going to become Northwestern in a hurry.

Anonymous said...

The problem is there is nothing questionable about who he is. Threatening teachers, throwing on court temper tantrums, cheating. This is a pattern.

And you are buying into a false dichotomy. There are good players that aren't bad people. With an actual coach, Minnesota shouldn't have to choose between bad players and bad people.

One moderately successful season and half the Minnesota fan base starts acting like Hillary Clinton.

WWWWWW said...

Apparently I'm not up on my Royce White trivia. I wasn't aware that he had been an ongoing problem at De La Salle.

I may need to revise my stance on this issue. Further research is required.

WWWWWW said...

That being said, I'm trusting Tubby in the matter.

Anonymous said...

I'm trusting him too. I just hope the program gets strong enough where we can turn away the bad apples with talent in favor of the good apples with better talent.

And word on the street is that Royce White was suspended in December for throwing a teacher's lap top in the trash after she told him to throw the food he was eating away. No school, especially a small private school that cares more about basketball than anything else kicks out their best player in decades without good reason.

Anonymous said...

Hey BARNY - Get a new source: "word on the street"? First, there was no laptop involved. That did spice up the story, however, it didn't happen! Royce talked back to the teacher who made him throw his food away and was suspended from three games. One more tidbit of truth for you, BARNY. DelaSalle, a small, private school cares about the education and development of students. When a student does not meet the standards they set, and working with that student does not change the situation, they are asked to leave. Basketball player or not, DelaSalle has handled this situation fairly. I applaud DelaSalle and Coach Thorson. C'mon BARNY, get a grip before you put your "word on the street" in print.

WWWWWW said...

I don't get the BARNY thing.

Anonymous said...

Royce was kicked out of De La Salle for being caught cheating 3 times. I go to a Classic Lake school and have cheated on numerous tests. What is ridiculous is that he actually got caught cheating...I mean come on. Our High School coach is going to give him another chance to play for a winning program here. I respect De La Salle for staying firm on their honor code, but they are really missing out. Besides his few problems, Royce is a B student. Everything is going to be fine.

Anonymous said...

I don't think many of those against this signing have actually paid attention to the story behind the story. Getting caught, getting kicked out seemed to be a wake up call to Royce White. Perhaps he was even the type who did not take his studies seriously. The point is not to look deeply at his past but to see that it doesn't happen again.