Huskers, Solich, Women Beaters and St. Tom

[The VIIIth]

I got a huge charge out of the Athens newspaper driving the bus over the Nebraska football program and the sanctimonious saint Tom Osborn...it's a story about Ohio University for about a paragraph and then they unload all of the hucksters dirty laundry from the past two decades.

Good times.


http://athensnews.com/index.php?action=viewarticle&section=archives&story_id=27444

[Big Red Ron]

Should 'Cats' player problems be surprising?

By Jonathan Hunt
Athens NEWS Writer
Thursday, February 22nd, 2007

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Off-field troubles involving Ohio University football players during the past 13 months roughly parallel those of the 1998 and 1999 teams, court records show, but the checkered disciplinary record of head coach Frank Solich's players stretches back further than that.

Solich emphasized Wednesday that he's doing what he can to compel and promote good behavior among team members, and that good citizens compose the vast majority of his team.



An Athens NEWS review of past rosters and court records found that the OU team's legal difficulties spiked in 1998 and 1999 before falling and then increasing markedly under Solich.

The coach's former employer, the University of Nebraska football program, the review also found, provides a lesson in what OU surely hopes to avoid in terms of player conduct, despite many individual successes.

In the interview on Wednesday, Solich flatly declined to discuss disciplinary issues at Nebraska, saying he's now totally focused on building a strong program in Athens.

More than a few players on OU's Jim Grobe-coached teams between 1996 and 2000 knew the inside of a police cruiser, and there were prolific offenders of that era who never got kicked off the team.

Dennis Fitzgerald, Zach Holt and Kahieem Maxwell, notably, turned out to be bad apples recruited by Grobe or his predecessor Tom Lichtenberg. Each had a violent record as bad or worse than any more recent player.

Still, only former Bobcat halfback Steveland Hookfin's felonious assault case in 1997-98 received much local attention during the Grobe years. Hookfin was acquitted in Athens County Common Pleas Court a year after prosecutors accused him of attacking an Athens Police officer with a pool cue at The Dugout tavern.

The problems subsided under former Bobcat head coach Brian Knorr, but then rose again after former athletics director Thomas Boeh and OU President Roderick McDavis hired Solich in 2004.

Solich's own drunken-driving conviction in November 2005 only served to trigger greater scrutiny of off-field incidents in Athens and foreshadowed the cluster of OU football players who have been arrested in the months since.

Solich has steadfastly denied culpability in his own case, saying he was drugged, but his attempt to withdraw his plea failed last August.

Already this year, local authorities have briefly jailed football players Kris Luchsinger, Ernie Hodge and Horace Hubbard -- all Solich recruits -- on charges that followed alleged violence uptown. (See related story, page 10.)

In Athens County Municipal Court, six team members last year were convicted of assault or disorderly conduct by fighting, and Luchsinger and Hodge have become the latest in a string of Bobcat footballers to get chased by local police.

At least 14 team members have been arrested since late January 2006 on original charges of assault, vandalism, DUI or for fleeing. That's 12.2 percent of the team, and does not include citations without arrests.

FBI and U.S. Census data show a 4.8 percent nationwide arrest rate in 2005, although the FBI does not break down the arrests by age, and arrests would almost certainly be higher in the college-age population.

THE BOBCATS MADE strong strides on the field this past season, earning a 9-5 record and going to OU's first bowl game since 1968.

"It's been enjoyable to see that group of players have success," said Solich in his Peden Stadium office on Wednesday. "What's not enjoyable for a coach is anything that involves character issues with a player, off-field problems."

Solich said he held a team meeting this week to address uncorrected problems, which he acknowledged are "extremely disappointing."

The coach added that he backs President McDavis' efforts to stem irresponsible drinking on campus. "You don't win football games without discipline in your program," said Solich.

OU's new code of student-athlete conduct is as tough as any he's seen, he added, before estimating that more than 90 percent of the team is "in tune" with the policy.

"We'll continue to bring guest speakers in," Solich continued, such as sports psychologist Dr. Jack Stark and others who teach personal development, healthy decisions and "a number of issues that potentially can affect an athlete."

The "90/10 rule," said Solich is what many coaches strive for - spending 90 percent of the time on coaching the sport itself, and 10 percent on everything else.

"When that equation gets dug into ... then you're just not the same coach, the staff, that you can be," he acknowledged.

NOTHING OVER THE PAST decade in Athens, however, could begin to equal the off-field history of the University of Nebraska football team in Lincoln, Neb., under legendary Cornhusker coach Tom Osborne and Solich, Osborne's protege and successor.

Solich joined Osborne's staff in 1979, and assumed the head coach job in 1998.

News reports and a personal account of general lawlessness by some Nebraska football players over the years raise the issue of whether there could be any connection to the recent problems at OU - which, it should be noted, have been less serious - and if there's any Solich pattern of recruiting or going easy on troublemakers.

In a 2003 Lincoln Journal Star report, Osborne lauded Solich's recruiting skills, citing several former Cornhuskers, including Irving Fryar, Mike Rozier, Ahman Green and Christian Peter.

What Osborne didn't mention was that each of those Nebraska athletes, and many others, ran afoul of the law in college or later as professionals, usually with minimal consequences.

While at Nebraska, Peter was convicted four times, including once for sexual assault, and arrested eight times, The Boston Globe reported in 2004.

Two Lincoln women also said they were raped by the player, though Peter was not convicted. Kathy Redmond was one of those alleged victims, and she later formed the National Coalition Against Violent Athletes, largely because of a look-the-other-way mentality she claims was prevalent at Nebraska.

Redmond warned the OU community about these dangers in a Friday interview.

"Tom Osborne ran the city of Lincoln, he ran the university, he ran the state of Nebraska," she said. "(Cornhusker football players) knew what they could and couldn't get away with, and they passed it down the line," she said. "Frankly, that's what can happen at Ohio."

The OU Board of Trustees, she offered, should be proactive.

"Once they delegate that role, they will have an out-of-control program," Redmond said. "(Solich) has got to be under a microscope."

Solich, while refusing to address events at Nebraska, defended Osborne.

"He's as good a man as there is; he's as fair a man as there is," he said. "I don't want to talk about those players in the past."

Years after Christian Peter left Nebraska for the NFL, Solich as head coach recruited offensive lineman Richie Incognito. Redmond said Incognito's behavior toward women wasn't much better than Peter's, but the Lincoln powers-that-be mostly kept his record clean.

"What bothered me was what he was able to get away with under Solich," said Redmond.

Solich did suspend Incognito during the coach's final season in Lincoln for unspecified reasons, and Solich's successor, Bill Callahan, kicked Incognito off the team after the player was convicted of assault for beating a man at a party.

In 2003, as head coach, Solich suspended Nebraska cornerback Kellen Huston for one game after Huston punched a University of Missouri fan who ran onto the field at the end of a game in Columbia, Mo. Solich told the Associated Press at the time, "I believe (Huston) reacted to what he thought was a threatening situation that happened in less than a second," but he added it was inappropriate to throw a punch.

Redmond noted that she does feel that Solich did the right thing in some situations at Nebraska.

"To tell you that we're going to bed check our players that are spread across Lincoln every night at 9 to make sure they're in, I guess I'm going to tell you that that's not going to happen," Solich told the Grand Island (Neb.) Independent in 2001. "We will rely on them to do the right thing with the understanding that they know what the expectations are in this program."

Solich, a running-backs coach at Nebraska before Osborne retired, presided over a backfield that became nearly synonymous with on-field success - and off-field woes.

Solich would not discuss whether he had any disciplinary discretion over running backs while working for Osborne.

Osborne, however, was known as a delegator, according to "Big Red Confidential: Inside Nebraska football," a book published in 1989 by Armen Keteyian.

Former Husker tight end Jamie Williams told Keteyian that Osborne "was pretty much a stickler on keeping things straight... I really can't say that about his assistant coaches. A few of them might have known things and didn't say nothing."

Former Nebraska running back Scott Baldwin was shot and paralyzed by Omaha Police in 1992, nine months after being found not guilty by reason of insanity in an attack against a Lincoln woman.

"The man had obvious mental problems," recalled Redmond, then a Nebraska student. "Nebraska, for some reason, was trying to rehabilitate him."

Former Husker running back Lawrence Phillips stayed on Osborne and Solich's team despite a terrifying assault on his girlfriend in which the women was dragged down three flights of stairs and reportedly bashed against a mailbox.

"I was one of the few people who ever got to see (photos of the woman's injuries)," said Redmond. "This woman's head was literally matted down in blood, she was so badly beaten."

In the NFL, the Rams, Dolphins and 49ers ridded themselves of Phillips, but Nebraska would have allowed him back for his senior season if he hadn't gone pro. Phillips graduated to more and bigger crimes, and is currently in prison.

THE LIST OF TROUBLED FOOTBALL players in Lincoln chronicled by published reports in major newspapers is long, and includes reputed gang affiliations, shootings, steroid use and, allegedly, receiving cars and cash through boosters.

In many cases, such players maintained connections with the team, such as when former Green Bay Packer Tyrone Williams reportedly worked off a Lincoln domestic-violence sentence in the Cornhusker training facilities during the 1997 NFL off-season.

"Big Red Confidential" cites a Lincoln Police source's claim that current OU offensive line coach and former Husker player Keven Lightner was spotted in 1986 "injecting a substance believed to be steroids into his buttocks."

DOES SOLICH RECRUIT problematic student-athletes?

Tony Tata, a former Nebraska linebacker, came to Lincoln in 1998 despite a high-school incident in Hawaii in which Tata allegedly broke the window of a teacher's car.

Solich told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that year that he was unaware of the alleged incident, and that Tata was a "good citizen" at Nebraska, though he was later arrested for disturbing the peace at a Lincoln nightclub.

Tata's high school teammate Junior Tagoa'i was charged in Hawaii in 1999 with threatening a teacher over the windshield incident. Solich had already signed Tagoa'i, an offensive lineman, to play at Nebraska.

In Lincoln, the coach had to toss Tagoa'i from the team in 2003 after Tagoai assaulted his girlfriend while she was holding their baby.

Questions arose at OU when Solich brought former Virginia Tech safety Michael Hinton to Athens in 2005. The Hokies had dismissed Hinton in 2004 after he was convicted of assault and battery in Blacksburg, Va.

Hinton cut in front of two international students waiting to order food at a McDonald's in April of that year, according to court records and published reports in The Roanoke Times. He then punched both men, knocking one unconscious and injuring the other's eye and teeth. Hinton had another assault charge dismissed in Blacksburg in 2003.

"I talked to the head coach (at Virginia Tech)," said Solich Wednesday. The Hokie coach, Frank Beamer, vouched for Hinton's character, he said.

Solich would not divulge whether the assault conviction came up in that discussion, or why Hinton remains suspended from the Bobcat team.

"We do have internal suspensions, where it really is no one's business but ours," Solich said.

The coach denied seeing any signs that high school and college student athletes nowadays are swollen with a sense of entitlement.

"What I see in our incoming classes is shades of everything," said Solich.

MCDAVIS, OF COURSE, can only dream of the Bobcats duplicating the athletic success enjoyed by the Huskers, NCAA Division I football champions in 1970, 1971, 1994, 1995 and 1997. But creating a mid-major-level football and marketing juggernaut at OU must appear within reach. The question is, at what cost?

"We're a balanced university," said President McDavis upon hiring Solich, in a 2005 The Post article. "Academics are first, and will always be first, but athletics are right there. I will do as much to improve athletics as I will academics. We're not a one-dimensional university."

Solich has won 70 percent of his games as head coach at the University of Nebraska and at Ohio.

Former OU head coach Grobe won the AP's national coach of the year award this past season at Wake Forest, when the Demon Deacons finished 18th in the AP's final national rankings.

While Knorr was compiling the 11-32 won-loss record that led former OU athletics director Boeh to fire him, only a small handful of players got into trouble.

Given the spikes under Grobe and Solich, all of this raises the question of whether big-time college coaches, along with their game-day successes, too often rely upon talented-but-troubled players.

A study during the 1990s by University of Massachusetts sports management associate professor Todd Crosset and investigative reporter Jeff Benedict found much higher rates of student-athlete assaults at major Division I universities than in the general population, but much lower conviction rates.

NOBODY SUGGESTS THAT college coaches can completely control off-the-field behavior by athletes who arrive on campus legally and physically as grown men, or that anything nearly as bad as what went down in Lincoln has happened in Athens.

But no one argues either that the individual development of athletes as human beings lies beyond a coach's job description. And nobody can say that screening the characters of potential recruits is inadvisable.

Some have suggested that Athens Police officers might be targeting Bobcat football players, who tend to stand out as bigger, louder participants in the late-night uptown social scene. However, the city's police force is notoriously under-staffed, and it's questionable whether the available officers would purposely hassle or tussle with such strong and agile suspects.

Comparing the off-field performance of Bobcat football players under Grobe, Knorr and Solich gets complicated because each coach, during his early years, ended up with players from previous regimes. To whatever extent problem players may have been impervious to good mentoring, it might absolve a coach who merely inherited them.

Despite the problems, which occur at many colleges, there are many individual successes within the OU football program, and Solich said many team members are triumphing over on- and off-field hurdles.

Solich noted that the team has posted the third highest graduation rate in the Mid-American Conference.

The Post reported in 2004 that Solich, in six seasons in charge of the Nebraska program, coached seven first-team Verizon/CoSIDA Academic All-Americans and 123 first-team academic all-conference honorees.

[Big Red Ron]

:D

[batonrougesooner]

This article is a piece of trash.

I read about half of it and had to stop. There are clearly some anti-Solich and anti-college athlete agenda's in play here.

[Big Red Ron]

This article is a piece of trash.

I read about half of it and had to stop. There are clearly some anti-Solich and anti-college athlete agenda's in play here.But the stuff about Nebraska is true. I never understood why Tom got a free pass for his thugs while Barry was blamed.

The stuff about phillips is true though. That guy should have been in prison, not playing for a national championship.

[tommie15]

But the stuff about Nebraska is true. I never understood why Tom got a free pass for his thugs while Barry was blamed.

The stuff about phillips is true though. That guy should have been in prison, not playing for a national championship.

How did Tom get a free pass. There was a freakin 60 Minutes program about our issues, for God's sakes.

Also, VIIIth clearly loves to stir **** up with Husker fans. I don't know why this was posted on a Sooner football board to begin with.

[crimson&cream]

How did Tom get a free pass. There was a freakin 60 Minutes program about our issues, for God's sakes.

Also, VIIIth clearly loves to stir **** up with Husker fans. I don't know why this was posted on a Sooner football board to begin with.
In ref to your last para, that is what boards like this is for info on all teams that OU has connection's to, and other's. Is there some rule against posting info on here other than concerning just OU.? :confused:

[Ash]

In ref to your last para, that is what boards like this is for info on all teams that OU has connection's to, and other's. Is there some rule against posting info on here other than concerning just OU.? :confused:

Nope, he's just mad because memories of the good ol' days of coach Osborne are all that Husker fans have right now, and you've gone and ****ed on it by bringing up the sad but oh-so-correct truth of that era.

[tommie15]

Look, both our programs have had our share of black eyes. Huskers calling Sooners bad names and Sooners calling Huskers bad names is the pot calling the kettle black to me.

Hate Nebraska if you want, but to say that we're a much dirtier program is stupid IMO, and vice versa.

And, this is the Sooner Football Board. I think there is a general sports forum for posts relating to other teams, but maybe I'm wrong.

[Ash]

Look, both our programs have had our share of black eyes. Huskers calling Sooners bad names and Sooners calling Huskers bad names is the pot calling the kettle black to me.

Hate Nebraska if you want, but to say that we're a much dirtier program is stupid IMO, and vice versa.

And, this is the Sooner Football Board. I think there is a general sports forum for posts relating to other teams, but maybe I'm wrong.

Well, personally I don't hate Nebbish and I didn't say anything about dirtier programs.

But I do think it's funny that Osbourne is seen as running the clean program while Switzer is the outlaw coach. And while you seem like a reasonable person, I've encountered many a Nebbish fan who thinks otherwise and are quick to try and degrade OU while holding up Osbourne and Nebraska Football as all that is pure and good in college sports.

[tommie15]

Well, personally I don't hate Nebbish and I didn't say anything about dirtier programs.

But I do think it's funny that Osbourne is seen as running the clean program while Switzer is the outlaw coach. And while you seem like a reasonable person, I've encountered many a Nebbish fan who thinks otherwise and are quick to try and degrade OU while holding up Osbourne and Nebraska Football as all that is pure and good in college sports.

And there are plenty of Sooners that do the opposite.

Just be smart and weed out the morons; we've both got plenty of those, too.

[Big Red Ron]

And there are plenty of Sooners that do the opposite.

Just be smart and weed out the morons; we've both got plenty of those, too.BS

Admit the truth. We WERE better than you on the field, there is no debate about that. However, it isn't OU fans that pretend like we were clean as the driven snow, as you and your heh "Big Red" brethren are so famous for.

Care to tell us which of OU & Nebraska used the nickname "Big Red" first? I'll give you a hint we had a mascot called "little Red" 40 years before neb.

[Seamus]

I realize I still shower with Noob & Shoulders shampoo, but I love how these ****ing fans from other schools try to dictate posting terms. :rolleyes:

[royalfan5]

I realize I still shower with Noob & Shoulders shampoo, but I love how these ****ing fans from other schools try to dictate posting terms. :rolleyes:
some these fans from other boards also help pay the bills around here too.

[stonecoldsoonerfan]

didn't johnnie rodgers play football when he had been charged for holding up a convenience store or something like that? my memory is a bit foggy about that, but i think something to that effect is the truth.

[royalfan5]

didn't johnnie rodgers play football when he had been charged for holding up a convenience store or something like that? my memory is a bit foggy about that, but i think something to that effect is the truth.
Yep, but that was Devaney.

[Big Red Ron]

some these fans from other boards also help pay the bills around here too.Eh, the amount is negligible. :twinkies:

[DCDee]

hmmmm...

[BermudaSooner]

That was tough to read with all of the "OU" in there.

[The VIIIth]

How did Tom get a free pass. There was a freakin 60 Minutes program about our issues, for God's sakes.

Also, VIIIth clearly loves to stir **** up with Husker fans. I don't know why this was posted on a Sooner football board to begin with.

Why was an NCAA investigation article about OU placed on a Husker Board?

I found this article on the Huskerpedia website right under an unflattering article on the NCAA investigation of Bomar and Quinn...in fact it was a Husker fan who posted the Athens Ohio newpaper article about all of the Huskers abuse of women in the Tom Osborn era...there was a litany of other incidents he failed to mention. Here are some tidbits...

Being interviewed at the half of the Orange Bowl by OJ Simpson: One of those new kids in town was a running back who former defensive coach George Darlington found in southern California. Most of TO's new recruits were speed demons on defense, but the kid from SoCal, LP, had too many physical skills to ignore let alone pass up. Osbrone gave him jersey #1 and a scholarship to Nebraska.

And we knew very little about this player until that 1994 Orange Bowl game, where Charlie Ward was going to Heisman his way all over the Corn. Spike Lee was even there, thinking chronicling Ward's career might make for a film that never materialized. Another person who was in attendance, because he was busy doing sideline work for his network televising the game, was none other than one OJ Simpson, who only 6 months later would find himself staring down the barrel of some serious LP-esque jail time. The Corn took a 7-6 lead into halftime, and OJ caught up with Osborne for a quick interview. And I promise you, once I figure how to load VCR tapes to youtube, it'll be up there.

"Well OJ," the always restrained TO said. "We could sure use you out there." Osborne still knew where to find the thugs to fill his team.


Coach Osborne suspended defensive star Christian Peter just one exhibition game after he was twice accused of rape, once convicted and several more times accused of sexual assault, and, also, of "disturbing the peace, trespassing, urinating in public, refusing to comply with the order of a policeman, threatening to kill a parking attendant, and possessing alcoholic beverages while under the age of 21."

Erwin Swiney arrested for assault & battery.

New Recruit: Two football recruits were arrested and charged with burglary and sexual abuse in connection with an alleged incident in January when the men were visiting the University and staying at Barnhart Hall, Eugene Police Department spokeswoman Kerry Delf said.

Marvin Johnson, 18, of Compton, Calif., who signed a letter of intent to play with the University, and Major Marquis Culbert, 18, of San Pedro, Calif., who eventually signed with Nebraska, both pleaded not guilty.

The men are accused of groping two female residents in a Barnhart Hall room on Jan. 14. During the incident, the women allegedly asked the men to leave, which they refused to do, and the burglary charges stem from their alleged refusal, according to an article Thursday in The Register-Guard.

Source: Ed HowardAssociated Press
LINCOLN, Neb. - The problems just won't go away for two-time defending national champion Nebraska. This time, star linebacker Terrell Farley was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving and coach Tom Osborne said the indefinite suspension he handed out Friday night could last the entire season. "He's been suspended and it will be a minimum of two games, more likely three and possibly permanent," Osborne said.



And finally from a New York City Cab Driver's Blog: My seventh ride was an elderly couple from Cheyenne, Wyoming. The arrest of yet another thug from the University of Nebraska football team was in the news, and now the man had a joke for me. "How do you get the attention of the entire Nebraska football team?"

I didn't know.

"You say, 'All rise and face the bench.'"

[The VIIIth]

some these fans from other boards also help pay the bills around here too.

Not like some of us do at Huskerpedia. It costs me 20 bucks a year to have posting priviledges there...perhaps we should look at something like that for fans of other schools here at Soonerfans.

Just a thought.

[royalfan5]

Not like some of us do at Huskerpedia. It costs me 20 bucks a year to have posting priviledges there...perhaps we should look at something like that for fans of other schools here at Soonerfans.

Just a thought.
I pay way more here than I did at Huskerpedia. All the sponsorship levels here, exceed HP's cost.

[Seamus]

So paying a little cash entitles you to dictate content on a Sooner board, when you, in fact, are not a Sooner? Sorry, can't buy that one.

As I said, I'm n00bish, and whether I get around to becoming a sponsor ... well, that's between me and, um, me. No business of yours, no matter how you spend your money. :twinkies:

[royalfan5]

So paying a little cash entitles you to dictate content on a Sooner board, when you, in fact, are not a Sooner? Sorry, can't buy that one.

As I said, I'm n00bish, and whether I get around to becoming a sponsor ... well, that's between me and, um, me. No business of yours, no matter how you spend your money. :twinkies:
I'm just you should respect the people that put cash up for the board you frequent, instead acting like it's your board after being here a short time.

[Seamus]

I'm just you should respect the people that put cash up for the board you frequent, instead acting like it's your board after being here a short time.

I do respect the Sooners that put up cash for the board I frequent. I take exception to outsiders trying to dictate terms.

It may be the minority opinion here, and it may even be wrong. But I don't care how much money you spend, or how much time you spend on the board. If you are a whorn, or a corn, or a sheep-shorn (aggie), then you are not a Sooner, and that makes you an outsider in my book. You may have discovered the board before I did, but you still ain't a Sooner.

Now, that hard-line attitude may earn me a red spek-fest, but I'll live with it. I'll still be a Sooner, and you won't.