24 August 2007

THUG LIFE AT SOUTH CAROLINA

This is not Photoshopped. You can see Mr. Cook in the lower left corner there showing the state what he thinks of their laws.

Well, yet another Gamecock has made the headlines by breaking the law. This time it wasn't simply burglarizing their own stadium and stealing laptops, it was a little more serious charge. Safety Emanuel Cook was arrested Friday evening along with another student on a gun charge. While the investigation is conducted, Cook has been suspended from the university and is therefore ineligible to play football. Coach Steve Spurrier promptly used the cop out excuses to try to create reasoning for this players behavior. He claimed that Cook is a good kid who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I think what he meant by this is that he has a bunch of thugs on his team that can't help but play with guns and break the law, the old " what'd I tell you about getting caught" admonition.
Now I know what every SC fan who reads this is thinking, " what about all of those Clemson players who routinely break the law and get out of it with no mention of it by the cops or the papers?" . "I'll tell you it's one big upstate conspiracy and if those guys played for us, they wouldn't be playing." "blah blah blah, If I can just make enough excuses, maybe we'll get some respect..." It's the same old song and dance, loads of excuses, and whipping out every piece of cobweb-covered garnet and black Gamecock apparel every time they're lucky enough to best us in football (the rate is about three times a decade now, or just about, and that's against Tommy, imagine if WE had a coach too). There is no conspiracy, and while we have some scary looking guys on our team, at least they have the class, or the intelligence, to keep themselves under control and eligible to play. It's an age old argument and until the Carolina faithful stop relying on the great Clemson conspiracies, they can never reach any level of competitiveness.

This news comes a day after "star" QB Blake Mitchell was suspended for the first game along with two other players. The players were suspended for skipping summer school classes at the university. I'm guessing this is a showing of their commitment to schooling, and their commitment to the team. If they cared about playing perhaps they would have cared about going to class. At least we can say this for Spurrier, that he is more of a disciplinarian than Lou Holtz ever was. The Gamecocks never really scare me ( or anyone else in the SEC or NCAA, for that matter) but who needs to fear them when they are taking themselves out of contention?