UGA blog finds new home
Morning all. As I’ve said a couple of times this week, we’re converting this blog over to a WordPress platform and it will be a permanent move the first of next week.
Those of you who are regulars probably know that I’m not what you’d call techno-wizard when it comes to these things. But from what I understand the technology offered in this new format should make the blogging and commenting experience better for all. Of course, I’ll be learning as we go along, too. But I’m hoping to provide more pictures and video and things like that which should bring the blog more to life.
Of course, this blog is nothing without all you guys so I want to heartily invite (read: beg) you to come over to the new site by CLICKING HERE ON THE NEW ADDRESS and save it in your browsers. As of Monday, Feb. 23rd, this will be the permanent home of the UGA blog you so love or, in the case of some of you, love to loathe. If you’d prefer to copy and paste or just memorize, the new address is: http://blogs.ajc.com/uga-sports-blog/.
See at the new place!
AJC > Sports > UGA > Blog > Archives > 2008 > January > 22
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
No need to fret over recent UGA arrests
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
OK, first off you just have to laugh. As Larry Munson would say, get the picture:
It’s 3 o’clock in the morning and a cop is driving down Milledge Avenue in Athens when a huge guy leaps off the sidewalk in front of the police car flailing his arms wildly as if trying to flag him down. Turns out that the man was Georgia fullback Fred Munzenmeier, who had been drinking, and he thought the cop car was a cab.
Munzenmeier was hauled off to jail and cited for underage consumption and pedestrian walking in the roadway. Miraculously, he was not charged with public drunkenness because, scientific field sobriety tests aside, the fact that he thought a police cruiser was a taxi is a pretty good indication Munzenmeier had a buzz. In retrospect, I guess Munzenmeier DID get the ride he sought.
Almost simultaneously, on another side of town, defensive back Donovan Baldwin was being pulled over for DUI. Nothing funny at all about that. But imagine each player’s surprise as they ran into each other in a holding cell.
But here’s what I wanted to say about all that: It always amazes me when these kinds of things happen and fans of different schools start jumping up and down and pointing fingers like a bunch of kindergarteners going “na-na-na-na-na-na” and claiming Georgia or whatever U is has an out-of-control discipline problem and recruits a bunch of thugs.
The truth is, the same type of incidents happen everywhere there are college campuses and bars and it doesn’t make said school a gathering place for heathens.
If anything I believe the Bulldogs athletics department is as strict or stricter than most when it comes to such things. It took coach Mark Richt less than eight hours to issue a statement that the two Georgia players would be suspended for AT LEAST the first game next season and that they would be subjected to alcohol counseling and treatment and would have to perform some community service in addition to some “in-house” punishment. At UGA, discipline for arrests is clearly spelled out — get cuffed and you’re automatically suspended for 10 percent of your games.
Compare that to the recent arrests at Tennessee. Two players were arrested for possession of marijuana when they were pulled over by Knoxville cops while driving around town with a recruit on an official visit. Their punishment: Community service as dictated by coach Phillip Fulmer, ride-alongs with local police and some “unnamed punishment” within the football program. But no suspensions from competition.
I guess Fulmer figures the Vols were punished enough when wide receiver recruit Jameel Owens committed to Oklahoma upon his return from his UT visit.
I joke, of course. But, the truth is, discipline and punishment are very much personal things. After all, not all parents discipline their kids the exact same way, do they?
The bigger point is this: These football player ARE kids. They’re away from home for the first time. Athens is fantastic town — the “Classic City” — but it’s full of all sorts of temptations, as are most college towns, and there are always going to be a few slipups. Last year it was Akeem Hebron, Tripp Chandler and Blake Barnes. This year it’s Baldwin and Munzenmeier and there will probably be another screwup before we reach the opening game of the 2008 season.
Does that make the University of Georgia Thugville? In my opinion, absolutely not. And similar incidents at Tennessee and Florida and LSU between now and opening day — and they’re coming, I can assure you — won’t make them Thugville either. What’s your thoughts?
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