This is more than a Rutgers problem

[biazza38]

First I will admit this situation sucks and is embarrassing. I didn't watch outside the lines (at work), but to say this is a Rutgers problem is a complete joke. This is way more than a Rutgers problem. The entire thing is a cultural problem and how nothing is done about it. There are way too many players getting arrested at the college and pro level. Look at the NFL. The things that these players are being arrested for now is laughable because I can't even imagine players getting arrested such actions. Look at Aldon Smith, Greg Hardy, Adrian Peterson, Michael Vick, Sheldon Richardson, etc. Heck, look at Adam Jones, How the heck is he still even in the league? I don't know why it is, but it is also way too common for players to get arrested and dismissed from college teams these days. It happens too often. Too many 18-22 year olds are ruining a chance to better themselves and I don't think it's totally on them. I just think some of them don't know right from wrong because of the area in which they grew up in.
And when like stuff like this happens, ESPN or some other network drums up some story about how bad this school or that school is. And instead of saying schools or conferences need to correct this or find a solution, what do they say? They say the coach should be fired. This accomplishes absolutely nothing. This isn't a Rutgers problem. This is a NCAA and a Pro problem. Unfortunately, there are a lot of college athletes that get to campus as a freshman and don't understand proper behavior. And these types of arrests will continue until something is done about it. I'd be interested to see the percentage of college football players arrested compared to other sports. I'm sure it's not a pretty number.

 

[Bones131]

Arrest numbers for football would be skewed relative to other sports because of the sheer number of participants. Better comparison would be with the overall male university population.

I don't know if it's because of the internet and 24/7 news cycles, evolving standards of society, or if football is really out of control across the board. Look no further than the two recent high school incidents in TX and NJ.

 

[RU_Planning]

First I will admit this situation sucks and is embarrassing. I didn't watch outside the lines (at work), but to say this is a Rutgers problem is a complete joke. This is way more than a Rutgers problem. The entire thing is a cultural problem and how nothing is done about it. There are way too many players getting arrested at the college and pro level. Look at the NFL. The things that these players are being arrested for now is laughable because I can't even imagine players getting arrested such actions. Look at Aldon Smith, Greg Hardy, Adrian Peterson, Michael Vick, Sheldon Richardson, etc. Heck, look at Adam Jones, How the heck is he still even in the league? I don't know why it is, but it is also way too common for players to get arrested and dismissed from college teams these days. It happens too often. Too many 18-22 year olds are ruining a chance to better themselves and I don't think it's totally on them. I just think some of them don't know right from wrong because of the area in which they grew up in.
And when like stuff like this happens, ESPN or some other network drums up some story about how bad this school or that school is. And instead of saying schools or conferences need to correct this or find a solution, what do they say? They say the coach should be fired. This accomplishes absolutely nothing. This isn't a Rutgers problem. This is a NCAA and a Pro problem. Unfortunately, there are a lot of college athletes that get to campus as a freshman and don't understand proper behavior. And these types of arrests will continue until something is done about it. I'd be interested to see the percentage of college football players arrested compared to other sports. I'm sure it's not a pretty number.

It is more likely that these types of things have been going on for decades, but now with 24/7 news coverage, social media, etc., everyone is aware of it. Maybe being aware is the first step to change, we should all hope.

 

[saran]

. I just think some of them don't know right from wrong because of the area in which they grew up in.

Its more than that - its the "families" they grow up in. No fathers, angry, young mothers who let d'bag "boyfriends" stay in the house etc. The elephant in the room people skate past is the race factor. Charles Haley recently pointed it out

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ncisco-49ers-rookies-act-like-white-guys.html

 

[ArminRU]

This stuff happens all the time. Our problem was that like 4 separate events happened at the same time. Pretty bizarre. But if this latest Caroo thing hadn't happened, everyone would be talking about PSU and the other stuff would have pretty much been forgotten.

 

[ElmiraExpress]

Its more than that - its the "families" they grow up in. No fathers, angry, young mothers who let d'bag "boyfriends" stay in the house etc. The elephant in the room people skate past is the race factor. Charles Haley recently pointed it out

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ncisco-49ers-rookies-act-like-white-guys.html

Whoaaaaaa !!!!

 

[zappaa]

This stuff happens all the time. Our problem was that like 4 separate events happened at the same time. Pretty bizarre. But if this latest Caroo thing hadn't happened, everyone would be talking about PSU and the other stuff would have pretty much been forgotten.

Sure, don't most programs have most of their secondary and an All American and captain WR sitting in jail? This happens all the time.

 

[ArminRU]

Sure, don't most programs have most of their secondary and an All American and captain WR sitting in jail? This happens all the time.

Reading comprehension. Do it better.

 

[WhiteBus]

Please stop comparing Rutgers to any other school like it's ok. First Rutgers isn't a football factory and other schools problems are completely irrelevant.
What has transpired over the last 3 weeks is unmatched by any school in recent memory and Rutgers doesn't have multiple championships to fall back on.

 

[zappaa]

Reading comprehension. Do it better.

You just said this stuff happens all the time?
If it doesn't happen to other teams in bunches like it did us, that makes us quite unique, just the opposite of it happens all the time

 

[KingHigh]

Please stop comparing Rutgers to any other school like it's ok. First Rutgers isn't a football factory and other schools problems are completely irrelevant.
What has transpired over the last 3 weeks is unmatched by any school in recent memory and Rutgers doesn't have multiple championships to fall back on.

No one is suggesting any of this is okay. It is most definitely not okay by any measure. Some of us believe that when something happens at RU, it gets blown up to absolutely idiot proportions by the local media (i.e. coach who yells at his players) while the same issues exist everywhere and are left neatly under the rug by local media elsewhere. And then the manner of coverage we get suggests that Rutgers has some sort of unique propensity to harbor bad people, which -- the events of the past few weeks notwithstanding -- we all know is untrue.

 

[GoodOl'Rutgers]

Agree with the OP.

If the top programs got deserved bad press and its players arrested and booted for stuff similar to what Rutgers is seeing, then maybe the bad examples would hit home with kids and they wouldn't be arriving in college expecting to do whatever they please with no repercussions.

If thug life weren't glorified in music (and even in dance as in "So you think you can dance" which this season featured "Stage vs Street") maybe the kids would have a chance of not wanting to mimic what they see in popular culture.

 

[zappaa]

You guys are getting pretty scary now.

 

[Caliknight]

Sure, don't most programs have most of their secondary and an All American and captain WR sitting in jail? This happens all the time.

Not at Florida State. They are never put in jail in the first place.

 

[mikefla]

Plenty of schools could cover this stuff up in the past,,,,most of the SEC iconic programs could,,,but not now with electronic/instant media.

Sure we have had some problems,,,but we have acted immediately to correct those problems.

My bottom line will always be ,,,PSU had way worse problems.......stuck together and have come through it......

Our fans always seem to self destruct

 

[RUinPinehurst]

Bottomline: know who you are recruiting. Investigate, professionally. Offer based on athletic ability and character. Don't sacrafice that standard for anything. Hire staff who are aligned with this. And reign in those boosters who are conflicted.

 

[ruhudsonfan]

Bottomline: know who you are recruiting. Investigate, professionally. Offer based on athletic ability and character. Don't sacrafice that standard for anything. Hire staff who are aligned with this. And reign in those boosters who are conflicted.

Admission into a service academy is an 18 month background investigation--even for athletes. All of the academies have had guys (and gals) arrested, expelled, separated without commission and some sent to military prisons for actions committed on campus.

Does anyone actually believe, deep in their core, that Flood is fostering an environment of lawlessness?

Come on.

 

[Knight_Light]

Please stop comparing Rutgers to any other school like it's ok. First Rutgers isn't a football factory and other schools problems are completely irrelevant.
What has transpired over the last 3 weeks is unmatched by any school in recent memory and Rutgers doesn't have multiple championships to fall back on.

Believe Rutgers hadn't had 7 players arrested over last 5-6 years...hence when it happens in just 2 weeks, that's something almost no other school has gone thru, even at those "thug" programs like UF, FSU, etc...where jailed players are sometime the norm.

 

[RUinPinehurst]

Admission into a service academy is an 18 month background investigation--even for athletes. All of the academies have had guys (and gals) arrested, expelled, separated without commission and some sent to military prisons for actions committed on campus.

Does anyone actually believe, deep in their core, that Flood is fostering an environment of lawlessness?

Come on.

Flood and the athletic dept are not purposefully creating the environment that allowed this all to happen. But it is a byproduct of not guarding against the outcome. We need to be vigilant and look for indicators of poor character and do what we can to minimize that exposure to the program and the university, as do the service academies. That's my point. Cannot deny that vetting student-athletes is a good idea and should be prioritized given current situation.

 

[ruhudsonfan]

Flood and the athletic dept are not purposefully creating the environment that allowed this all to happen. But it is a byproduct of not guarding against the outcome. We need to be vigilant and look for indicators of poor character and do what we can to minimize that exposure to the program and the university, as do the service academies. That's my point. Cannot deny that vetting student-athletes is a good idea and should be prioritized given current situation.

I don't deny it at all.

What I'm suggesting is there are guys with more or less spotless backgrounds, who sometimes LOSE THEIR SHIT.

That it happens isn't as important as what we, as an institution, do about it once it happens. That is what separates us from the pack.

 

[derleider]

Its more than that - its the "families" they grow up in. No fathers, angry, young mothers who let d'bag "boyfriends" stay in the house etc. The elephant in the room people skate past is the race factor. Charles Haley recently pointed it out

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ncisco-49ers-rookies-act-like-white-guys.html

If you think those things only happen in black households you dont know much white trash, or many well off black families either. Those arent traits that go along with being black - they are traits that go along with being poor. What Haley should have said is that rookies should act like the non-poor guys on the team.

 

[zappaa]

Admission into a service academy is an 18 month background investigation--even for athletes. All of the academies have had guys (and gals) arrested, expelled, separated without commission and some sent to military prisons for actions committed on campus.

Does anyone actually believe, deep in their core, that Flood is fostering an environment of lawlessness?

Come on.

Of course not, I still believe deep in my core as you say, players are aware of the bad seeds, even to the point of knowing some guys are up to some bad sh*t. A guy like Hamilton may have told Boggs to stay away from TJ, or Peele is a cool guy but you should keep your distance.
My only point is the head coach was obviously shocked by this, but I'd bet money, lots of players in that locker room were not.
I think KF will be doing a lot more talking to the leaders in the future about what the locker room talk is.
Pipelines to the coaches are not unusual and KF should seek them out from now on.
I sit next to the brother of one of our players and flat out asked him what his bro thought, his answer was "there was some bad guys on this team and his bro is glad ther gone"
They knew

 

[B0ski]

You guys are getting pretty scary now.

Yes, the masses, over the past few weeks, are confirming my suspicions - the majority of the RU fan base is NO DIFFERENT than the majority of the PSU fan base. What occurred at PSU was definitely worse than what has happened here but our fans argue away that media (even national media now against us) bias, bad fan base, NJ culture, you name it, as reasons why this is undeserved attention. Reading some of the posts is very similar to the penn staters posts on their issues. The same posts that got taken to the woodshed here. Both comical and sad at the same time.

 

[derleider]

Bottomline: know who you are recruiting. Investigate, professionally. Offer based on athletic ability and character. Don't sacrafice that standard for anything. Hire staff who are aligned with this. And reign in those boosters who are conflicted.

As fans of a P5 team I think you have to resign yourself to the fact that of 100+ guys on the roster, a handful of them will be bad dudes. Its the cost of playing the game. The fact that we didnt have alot of arrests is probably just luck, or maybe we managed to chase off the bad seeds before they could do something stupid while here. But its a fact of the game - we are recruiting guys who come from backgrounds that most of us wouldnt wish on our enemies, and with that comes an increased chance that some of them will be criminals, just like they would have been if they stayed in their neighborhoods (or in fact were before they got here). But most of them turn out not to be. We do a good job of keeping our kids out of trouble. So the basic answer if you want kids to stay out of trouble is - dont recruit poor kids. But that cuts our stream of players so much that we might as well drop the program.

 

[ArminRU]

You just said this stuff happens all the time?
If it doesn't happen to other teams in bunches like it did us, that makes us quite unique, just the opposite of it happens all the time

The individual incidents happen all the time. All of them happening at once does not. That was the point of my post. Duuhhhrrrr

 

[zappaa]

The individual incidents happen all the time. All of them happening at once does not. That was the point of my post. Duuhhhrrrr

Yes, which is quite disgraceful, basically unprecedented and worthy of scrutiny.

 

[RU1993]

Kind of wish you could role back the clock to a time when football was less complicated than it is today. When is was a a way to enjoy a cool, crisp autumn day with your college buddies. It was about grilling some burgers and hot dogs and drinking cold beer before a game. and then entering the stadium and rooting for the home team.

I know I sound old fashion, but today's game and culture has grown out of control.

 

[derleider]

The individual incidents happen all the time. All of them happening at once does not. That was the point of my post. Duuhhhrrrr

Thats just bad luck for us. People are ingrained to see patterns in random data, and I think this is a case of that. had these been spread out over the course of a few years, then no one would say there is a problem with RU - it would just be - oh yeah - CFB is kind of dirty and even a team like RU that does a good job of keeping players eligible and doesnt have recruiting scandals cant keep everyone out of trouble.

1993- you dont have to roll back the clock - just drive 12 miles down route 1 and watch Princeton. Or go out to Monmouth. Football is a wreck because its big business.

 

[WhiteBus]

No one is suggesting any of this is okay. It is most definitely not okay by any measure. Some of us believe that when something happens at RU, it gets blown up to absolutely idiot proportions by the local media (i.e. coach who yells at his players) while the same issues exist everywhere and are left neatly under the rug by local media elsewhere. And then the manner of coverage we get suggests that Rutgers has some sort of unique propensity to harbor bad people, which -- the events of the past few weeks notwithstanding -- we all know is untrue.

The reason that Rutgers gets more scruntized over stuff like this us simple. It's not supposed to happen at Rutgers. We aspire to be a lot better.

 

[derleider]

The reason that Rutgers gets more scruntized over stuff like this us simple. It's not supposed to happen at Rutgers. We aspire to be a lot better.

Which is and always has been a stupid position to take for this very reason. Because you cant avoid it. And when it comes down you look really bad.

 

[WhiteBus]

Which is and always has been a stupid position to take for this very reason. Because you cant avoid it. And when it comes down you look really bad.

You can't avoid kids on your team, under your watch refrain from home invasions. Stealing drugs?? I think you can instill in them values that makes them realize the stupidity of such actions. Also random drug tests wouldn't hurt either.

 

[KingHigh]

The reason that Rutgers gets more scruntized over stuff like this us simple. It's not supposed to happen at Rutgers. We aspire to be a lot better.

That I can definitely live with. It would be nice for the media to include that as part of their stories so that it is viewed through the proper prospective when the story travels to other markets.

 

[zappaa]

Which is and always has been a stupid position to take for this very reason. Because you cant avoid it. And when it comes down you look really bad.

Seriously Der-
When it happens? This is crazy talk, you act is if 99% of this board if told since Dailey we would have 11 suspensions, a half dozen arrests, players in jail, your captain arrested, we'd be like OK…this happens everywhere.

 

[lighty]

Which is and always has been a stupid position to take for this very reason. Because you cant avoid it. And when it comes down you look really bad.

Exactly. This is why some of us cringed every time there was a Ped State post. The players on Penn State had no idea what had gone on (which took place years before they even got there) and neither did 99% of the university. Yet Rutgers fans had to make it look as if the school was holier than thou -- nothing could ever happen here because we recruit "Rutgers Men".

Doesn't the concept of "Rutgers Man" look awfully foolish now? It started with the Ray Rice incident. Even though that happened long after he left the banks, he was the school's biggest star. In a way, he remained the face of the program so when he went down the football program took a hit as well.

I'm not saying the things the RU kids are equal at all to what happened with Sandusky, but let's face it these aren't normal college football crimes either. Some really crazy stuff went down.

All I'm saying is it's kind of funny seeing posters get so upset at ANY PSU poster that says anything (good or bad) with the posts that went on around here for years and still do. If you act holier than thou and get caught doing something it's WORSE than if you had just kept your mouth shut. We all know kids are going to do stupid stuff sometimes and kids from inner cities might do even worse stuff sometimes. It was only a matter of time before Rutgers faced problems like this. I just never expected RU to face so many problems at once.

 

[RU_87]

Exactly. This is why some of us cringed every time there was a Ped State post. The players on Penn State had no idea what had gone on (which took place years before they even got there) and neither did 99% of the university. Yet Rutgers fans had to make it look as if the school was holier than thou -- nothing could ever happen here because we recruit "Rutgers Men".

Doesn't the concept of "Rutgers Man" look awfully foolish now? It started with the Ray Rice incident. Even though that happened long after he left the banks, he was the school's biggest star. In a way, he remained the face of the program so when he went down the football program took a hit as well.

I'm not saying the things the RU kids are equal at all to what happened with Sandusky, but let's face it these aren't normal college football crimes either. Some really crazy stuff went down.

All I'm saying is it's kind of funny seeing posters get so upset at ANY PSU poster that says anything (good or bad) with the posts that went on around here for years and still do. If you act holier than thou and get caught doing something it's WORSE than if you had just kept your mouth shut. We all know kids are going to do stupid stuff sometimes and kids from inner cities might do even worse stuff sometimes. It was only a matter of time before Rutgers faced problems like this. I just never expected RU to face so many problems at once.

This would actually make a really good Sports Management study from an academic perspective. When it comes to the PSU issue, the PSU administration & coaches allegedly knew of (to some extent) the issues at hand and did not do enough about them. Hence the crack down on them was an attempt to change the culture...the penalties to try to change the culture then affect the current players (that had nothing to do with it)....which I assume was considered by the NCAA to be a necessary evil of trying to change the culture. Then you have the recent set of Rutgers issues that have transpired, where 'allegedly' (since we won't know until the investigations complete) the RU administration & coaches did not know about the issues (or at least not for any great length of time) but (as someone points out) there were probably other players that knew of some of the bad apples. Completely different scenarios and completely a different set of controls that need to be put in place afterward to prevent similar issues in the future. Probably to a point that you really can't compare the issues...but can they be used to contrast them and assess appropriate changes, etc.?