Much hullabaloo has been made about the 15 players who have left the team since the start of 2007, but when we looked at the list, there were a few names that made us say, "uh... what?" Let's look at that list and discuss what it actually means for the football team. We'll use the BIGDEALOMETER (tm) to measure how much you should care about each departure. The BIGDEALOMETER (tm) measures the impact of events on a revolutionary 0-10 scale, where 0 represents complete insignificance and 10 is the world exploding. Shall we? Yes, we shall.
Richie Amendola, jr., OL, Corallville - unknown: Who? Was he even on scholarship? 0/10
Nyere Aumaitre, sr., OL, Camden, N.J. - unknown: To be perfectly honest, I thought he'd left the program in 2005. 0/10
Anthony Bowman, so., WR, Detroit - transfer: CBI, bitch. Never on the 2-deeps. 2/10
Nick Brayton, so., DL, Iowa City - unknown: Another walkon. 0/10
Dana Brown, jr., RB, Clairton, Pa. - dismissed: Spent most of his time in Iowa City in trouble, and that's before he beat his girlfriend. Nonetheless, Iowa could use some tailbacks. 4/10
James Cleveland, so., WR, Baytown, Texas - dismissed: CBI, bitch. Always sad to see a dealer go. 6/10
Dominique Douglas, so., WR, Detroit - transfer: CBI, bitch. Started as a freshman, then embarked on a quest to break every single law ever. Will probably go down as the most prolific sower of discord for Hawkeye athletics since Hunter Rawlings.7/10
Cedric Everson, so., DB, Detroit - transfer: Amari Spievey's return softens the blow of losing Everson and Satterfield, who quite improbably weren't known members of CBI. Still, losing young corners sucks hard. 6/10
Adam Farnsworth, sr., QB, North Ogden, Utah - transfer: We're nearly certain the Pr0fess0r wasn't even on scholarship. 0/10
Alex Kanellis, sr., OL, Iowa City - injury: Make no mistake, losing him and Bruggeman before the season hurt. The two couldn't have possibly been worse than Meade and Vandervelde. 6/10
Grant McCracken, sr., DE, Ankeny - unknown: Pretty sure he wasn't even on the 2-deeps. Like, ever. 0/10
Devan Moylan, sr., DB, Panora, Iowa - injury: Okay, he was on the team for five years and took up a scholarship for one of them. It's a bit disingenuous to say he's leaving the program "early." 2/10
Arvell Nelson, so., QB, Cleveland, Ohio - dismissed: CBI, bitch. Wouldn't have been in the running to contribute at QB anyway. 2/10
Jevon Pugh, fr., RB, Winterhaven, Fla. - unknown: What was it, Jevon? Was it the cruelly unrelenting winter? The lack of public support from the coach? The love letters I left outside your dorm room The lack of a practice facility? Either way, you were probably starting at an above-average, run-first BCS team. Now you're back home. I don't know what else to say. 8/10
Abe Satterfield, fr., DB, Erie, Pa. - transfer: Don't let the 2-star rating fool you--he was one of Iowa's first offers and commits of his class, and he would have been pushing for a starting spot already. This is the wrong program to be mixed up in bad company, though. Question the high BIGDEALOMETER (tm) rating now, but think of it when Bradley Fletcher gets torched for a long TD like 19 times. 6/10
Eddie Williams, sr., FB, Rock Island, Ill. - unknown: Iowa will probably survive the loss of a 3rd string, walk-on fullback. 0/10
So there's about five or six guys you should be worried about leaving the team. Of them, two didn't play a down in 2007, three made it halfway through the season before being axed, and only two (Pugh, Cleveland) played the entire season. Pugh was the only one with a glimmer of hope of starting in 2008. In other words, don't expect a backslide because of any of these departures. Plus your wallets are probably safer now.
The Des Moines Register published some additional details from the August '07 arrest of Dominique Douglas and Anthony Bowman, and, well, they don't look too pleasant:
Search warrant documents recently unsealed and obtained by The Des Moines Register from the Johnson County Courthouse indicated the credit cards, belonging to students Abraham Tekippe and Michael Nelson, were used after the students reported their wallets stolen from N115 Hillcrest and C128 Hillcrest, respectively.
[...]
Tekippe later reported that by 8:30 a.m. the next day [May 9, 2007], more than $2,000 worth of transactions had been attempted on his credit cards. Among the attempted purchases were baseball caps and a pair of $490 shoes, with Bowman's dorm room listed as the shipping address.
Most of the purchases were denied on the basis of the credit cards being listed as stolen.
Tekippe also reported the purchases had taken place over the Internet and two orders had been placed with Sneakerhead.com for Bowman and Douglas, using Bowman's e-mail address.
[...]
Bowman confessed during questioning to buying the merchandise using the stolen cards despite initially denying it, Poole said. Douglas continued to deny he had participated in the use of the cards and asked to see a lawyer.
Poole said Douglas had listed Cleveland, who is to appear for his preliminary hearing on the drug charges March 14, as having "access to Douglas' user name and password during the time unauthorized purchases were made online."
Ouch. Also, the story notes that Bowman is no longer listed on the team roster. Sure enough. We don't remember any formal announcement that Bowman is off the team, but there's been scuttlebutt to that effect for days now, so maybe it's in Bowman's best interests to go about that as quietly as possible. Fine. Whatever. Ta-ta.
Also, Cleveland looks like far more of an active participant than originally thought. Nothing here seems rock solid proof of wrongdoing against him, just guilt by association, but this evidence, coupled with the drug arrest, means we have definitely seen the last of him in a Hawkeye uniform. So it goes.
But there's an even more troubling update, and one you should probably sit down for. As you're probably aware, Dominique Douglas' gang is called CBI, or City Boyz Inc. Make sure you get the spelling exactly right, because accuracy is key here.
We say that because if you just switch one letter, let's say... the Y in "City" to an I, you get "Citi Boyz." And uh... that name's taken. By a gay pornography company.[While the link is technically safe for work and there are no depictions or simulations of relations on the page, we really, really don't recommend clicking it.--ed]
Now, look. Beyond the standard NTTAWWT, we don't mean any disrespect to our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. Demeaning someone for who they're sexually attracted to is only acceptable if they're chubby chasers. But as Norm MacDonald put it, "there's nothing wrong with being gay--unless you're not gay, then it's like the worst thing in the world." That, of course, goes triple for jocks; go into a locker room sometime and accuse someone of being gay. See how well it goes over. So with that in mind, CBI may need to undergo, uh, significant re-branding. At the very least, go the KFC route and stick with the acronym only. Heck, in KFC's case, it's even more warranted: We'd much rather be associated with homosexuality than with the state of Kentucky.
Forget George Bush, Hannah Montana, Oprah, and DMX; there is only one ruler of the entire universe. That is MOTO: Master Of The Obvious. The current monarch of the MOTO Universe is none other than outgoing Iowa tailback Albert Young, who broke it down in achingly obvious terms for the Des Moines Register:
"Things definitely have gotten out of hand. There is no way around it," Young said. "And it started happening even before the season."
worse:
"The coaches preach the right things. There is no reason players shouldn't know right from wrong, so if people are blaming the coaches or the university - that's just not right," Young said. "I am not going to name names, but I have seen guys act one way on their recruiting visit, then act a whole other way once they get here and start school. How can you predict that? You can't. It is not only happening at Iowa. I am sure it is happening all over the country."
Yes, the Register is a Gannett-owned shitrag, but AY has a point here. Isn't it insanely obvious that, uh, something's really wrong here?
Now, to be fair, a coach needs to be more proactive than, let's say Stan and Kyle from South Park, who just say "oh goddammit" whenever something dumb happens and it counts as biting social commentary. And Kirk Ferentz has been heavy-handed with both his reactionary discipline and his prevention program (he has, somehow, imposed a 12-day-a-week curfew). So like AY said, he's probably not the one to point the finger at. Still... what the hell? Name one other university where the star running back is compelled to cast aspersions against the state of legal affairs among the players.
Anyway, we thank AY for his candor, even as we bemoan the circumstances that warrant it. We just hope that the criminal element doesn't infect Casey McMillan, because the last thing this city needs is a raging hateboulder throwing a cop car at an elementary school.
Sadly, this is not a repeat. Mr. CBI himself is back on the internets, taking pictures with large sums of cash for some reason, and as Pants Pal Eric Page puts it, "that ain't Pell Grant money." Observe:
Fat stacks on his face...
...on his head...
...and in his mouth. Okay then.
It's probably safe to say that he's not particularly interested in playing football ever again, because he has better things to do, like... wear his money like a hat (but he already has a hat on. Oh, I quit.)
That lunacy aside, there's actually something worth noting in the article: the strange tale of Abe Satterfield. He was a lightly recruited kid from Erie, only two stars, but he was offered early enough that the coaching staff must have seen something they liked. He saw light playing time as a true freshman, usually on special teams, and was suspended indefinitely with Cedric Everson before the Michigan State team. Later, he was named by the Des Moines Register as one of three players that police investigated in the sexual assault case. Of the three, Everson and Satterfield both transferred after the semester, and you kind of know how we feel about Jevon Pugh, the third implicated student-athlete, already.
So, according to the article, Satterfield found his way to Indiana University of Pennylvania (which, somehow, is located in the mountains of Nepal). The coach there, former Illinois whipping boy leader Lou Tepper, had this to say about Satterfield:
"I said, 'Would you take him back if you could?' Tepper told the Indiana Gazette. "And they said, 'Absolutely.' They told me that he might have started for them next year at corner. They were all high on him. He seems like a great kid."
Page then muses:
Hmmm... what does that tell you about Satterfield’s decision to transfer, which I think we all assumed at the time was strongly encouraged if not demanded by the coaching staff? The fact that Tepper asked, "Would you take him back if you could?" and they said, "Absolutely"... that either means the decision to leave was totally Satterfield’s or that his dismissal was based on public perception. Did the coaching staff want to keep Satterfield around but couldn’t because his name had been mentioned in the same sentence as rape and with the year they’ve had it would have been a PR nightmare? Or did Satterfield leave town because he had already been found guilty in the court of public opinion? It’s interesting...
All plausible scenarios, to be sure. Let me throw this out there, too--we don't know why they couldn't take Satterfield back. For one, it's probably better that such information wasn't made public, just for the kid's sake. Nobody's been charged with anything, after all. But in light of the fact that he and Everson were both suspended immediately and effectively permanently, don't you think it's possible that Iowa couldn't take Satterfield back because of his misconduct? That although there wasn't enough evidence to charge him with sexual assault, the coaching staff knew that he had screwed up badly enough that team rules dictated that he'd be off the team? Also, isn't it wholly plausible that Ferentz wasn't being completely truthful with Tepper? It'd be an awfully dick move to tell the kid's new coach, "fuck no we don't want him back, good luck, peace." Satterfield and Everson are off the team and off campus (Everson transferred to Alcorn State), so that's essentially the end of what Kirk Ferentz needs to worry about, right? Why kick them when they're down?
Anyway. Good that they're neither here nor in prison. And I sincerely hope that this is the last time we ever hear bad news about them. There's no behavior that's more abhorrent or appalling than violence against women, but these two have a second chance, one most don't get, to start acting like real men. We sincerely hope they take it. As for Dominique... well, that deferred judgment's probably going to get un-deferred in the near future. That's a shame.
Let's get the bad news out of the way right now: WR James Cleveland, two counts of misdemeanor drug possession, one felony count of tax stamp violation.* QB Arvell Nelson, possession of marijuana. Both are, in all likelihood, gone, gone, motherfucking gone.Via the Great Gazoo:
According to police reports, University of Iowa public safety officers found marijuana in plain view on top of Nelson's desk at 2:41 a.m. Nelson admitted the marijuana was his, according to the complaint.
At 3:01 a.m., Cleveland consented to a search of his room, according to the complaint. Police founds 21 units of oxycodone and 24 does of carisoprodol in his desk. Cleveland admitted the pills — for which a label or prescription was not found — were his, according to the complaint. Oxycodone usually is prescribed for pain relief, while carisoprodol is a muscle relaxer.
If you were curious about whether we'd had any warning signs of the bad behavior, why yes, we did. Remember the facebook picture fiasco from last fall? These two guys sure do; they were there! Here they are, posing with Head Retard In Charge Dominique Douglas:
KEEP IT REAL
aaaand
DALE JUNIOR WHAT
If the allegations are true (and based on the police report, that sounds prohibitively likely), then they should be fed to bears. That's probably not the direction that Ferentz will take in this matter, sadly, but we can't be sure yet. We can't be sure because he can't be reached, on account of being on a motherfucking cruise. (Sailboat Bill completely approves, by the way.)
*The tax stamp law is complete and total horseshit, by the way, but the lesson is still the same: do not fucking sell drugs.
UCLA fans most certainly took notice of the Seattle Times' withering expose on the complete lack of institutional control on Rick Neuheisel's Washington teams. There's not much we can say about it, other than that Jerramy Stevens is a vile, horrible human being who doesn't deserve another waking moment as a free man.
This never should have happened.
Should we sacrifice class for success? reads the headline in the Daily Bruin. The article itself is either pedantic or brilliant, depending on whether you take any of the last half of the article at face value.
But it's a weird question to ask: Is winning or discipline more important? And the answer is, well, "yes." They're both hugely, vitally important. The notion that one comes at the cost of the other is flatly ridiculous, and one that ought to be retired soon.
For proof, look no further than, well, Iowa. The Hawkeyes just slogged through their worst season since 2000, and their off-field transgressions were every bit as poor as their gameday "performance." Further, there's nothing to suggest that better athletes are more predisposed to run afoul of the law; most of the players arrested were lesser-known recruits, and Iowa's Big 7 from the 2005 All-American game all stayed clean. We're actually a bit surprised that nobody has tried to frame Jake Christensen for robbing a bank with a rocket launcher just to get him kicked off the team. Then again, the off-season has just begun.
We know great teams can maintain a high level of character. We know lousy teams can fill up rap sheets at a dizzying pace. Failing on either count is unacceptable.
You remember Matt Roth, right? Yes you do. Of course you do. Matt Roth was the craziest ball of crazy that ever set foot on the Kinnick sod. Sure, there have been big hitters and "boy his motor never stops" types for as long as there have been Hawkeyes. But no Hawkeye since Alex Karras--if ever--embodied the sheerly entertaining stereotype of a mentally unstable destruction machine.
You will die.
Indeed, as rich as his heritage of on-field exploits are, so too are the urban legends; we've all heard the stories* about how he cleared out a bar with a pool cue, or how it took 11 bouncers to remove him just because he was wearing a beater, or how he doesn't teabag ladies, he potato-sacks them. Wait, that's Chuck Norris. Same league.
We bring up Captain Insane-O because, though he may be a man of legend, he is just one man, and one with an unending loyalty to the program. You think it's just current Hawkeyes who make life hell for the ICPD? No, no, no. Not in the Hawkeye family. Indeed, Roth was arrested for public intoxication at The Union this past weekend. The Union, of course, is the de facto bar of choice for NFL athletes--just ask Kyle Orton.
It's good to see that above all else, and regardless of what he does in the NFL, Matt Roth will always be a Hawkeye. And by that, of course, we mean a public nuisance in Iowa City. Attaboy.
*I have my own couple of stories, but this isn't quite the time or place for them. Get a few beers in me and we'll talk.
Pugh, as you may recall, was the heir apparent at tailback for the next three seasons before being named by the Des Moines Register in the sexual assault scandal that continues to hang over the program. The other two athletes, Cedric Everson and Abe Satterfield, were quickly suspended and left the program after the season. Pugh remained eligible and scored the winning touchdown against Michigan State after Albert Young injured his shoulder.
There is no evidence available that Pugh had any connection to the victim other than associating with her and Satterfield at one point in the night. Whether he should have been out at all is, of course, its own issue, but not one that merits removal from the team or school.
We cannot, of course, insist that Pugh did nothing wrong. We weren't there that night. We do know that Ferentz chose to remove the other two players from the team immediately, but never chose to do so with Pugh. He chose to announce the departures of three different players, but never chose to do so with Pugh. He's never, that we can recall, hung a player out to dry like this. He has chosen to do so with Pugh.
And so Pugh unceremoniously leaves a university that no longer trusts his name and a coach who never cared to defend his player. To call it a shame would be a massive understatement.
Recall, if you will, that Everson and Satterfield were suspended back in October immediately following an alleged sexual assault (though the investigation wasn't started and the allegations weren't made public for nearly a month; keep it classy, Mims). The subsequent investigation of three players named no names; that was the Register's doing, outing Everson, Satterfield, and Pugh. Pugh was never suspended; indeed, while the two DB's were taken off the sidelines, never to play for the UI again, Pugh was busy scoring the winning touchdown the very next week. He was, to our knowledge, never arrested, suspended, or otherwise reprimanded for any role in the assault. The contrast is stark: swift and severe disciplinary action against two, and absolutely nothing for the other.
All the while, no indication that Pugh did anything wrong. Two separate instances of the media casting serious doubt on Pugh's standing with the team. And a bizarre silence from the coaching staff on the matter.
Set aside the fact that, as a near-mortal lock to be on the two-deeps at tailback, Pugh stands to play a critical role on the team next year. His level of contribution to the team is incidental in the matter. Someone's got to stand up for a Hawkeye that's being completely hung out to dry. We'd sure as hell like to see it from Ferentz or his staff, and we sure wouldn't mind even a statement from a teammate.
Now, if Pugh has made up his mind and is actually leaving, then for his sake, make it official. Otherwise, let us know he's back. There's nothing to be gained by any party in this matter, be it Pugh or the team, to keep him twisting in the wind like this.
Not so surprising news from Iowa City today; Cedric "The Entertainer" Everson is among three freshmen who are gone, gone, gone. According to GoldPantsPal Eric Page, Everson and the other two young men implicated in the October sexual assault will not join the Hawkeyes during next semester's spring practices.
We've bemoaned the rampant program attrition around here in times past, but in this instance Iowa is undoubtedly engaging in addition by subtraction. Ferentz has a tough line to toe; he's going to have to get tougher on discipline and character and improve player retention. In this case, he has chosen to remove the players from the team, and that's the right move.
I was thinking about posting a nice retrospective on Everson's brief but eventful career here, but fuck it and fuck him. He had an opportunity to play ball in the Big Ten and he threw it away in despicable fashion. We wash our hands of him and pay him no more mind. It is done and he is gone.
Do you have any NCAA eligibility left with the University of Iowa? Have you ever dribbled a regulation-sized basketball? Will you fit into a medium-sized jersey without stretching it in the middle? If you can answer "yes" to two of these three questions, Todd Lickliter invites you to show up at the McLeod Center in Cedar Falls tomorrow night; he's got a starting role at point guard waiting for you. Heck, even this might even be worth some minutes:
Seriously, just Jake and Justin. That's all. Time to see if those two can put in 40 minutes at the 1 and 2 (no, not these) straight. Looks like we'll be going with this lineup:
PG J. Kelly
SG J. Johnson
SF J. Cole
PF K. Looby
C S. Gorney
----------------------
J.R. Angle
C. Tate
T. Lickliter
Traffic Cone
Dreams
Unicorn
D. Palmer
Wow. Iowa's, uh... Iowa's going "big," I guess. Jeff, our thoughts are with you and your family, and we hope you come back soon.
About the only good thing for Iowa fans making the trip up to Cedar Falls (you know, since we've been doing such a great job of filling Carver) will be the Panthers' gorgeous new basketball arena, which opened in 2006 and is a wonderful facility for a mid-major program like UNI's. From any meaningful standpoint (atmosphere, aesthetics, acoustics), it's an unquestionable upgrade from the UNI-Dome. Our NE Iowan readers would do well to catch a game or two up there.
Resident troublemaker Dominique Douglas is back in the news, as he has just agreed to a plea deal in the Douglas/Bowman Affair. Details are as follows (all emphasis mine):
Suspended Iowa football player Dominique Douglas on Tuesday pleaded guilty to credit card fraud and was ordered to play $223.53 in restitution to the victim of a May 8 incident in which Douglas used a stolen credit card to make online purchases from Hat World.
Barry and Levon approve of $223... worth of hats. Awwww yeah.
Douglas, a sophomore receiver from Detroit who has been serving an indefinite suspension since being arrested Aug. 19, entered a written plea of guilty in Johnson County Court, an agreement that reduced the charge against him from a Class D felony to an aggravated misdemeanor.
This is, of course, much more in line with the nature of the offense than the original $750-$7500 in fees and five years in prison.
Douglas, 19, who was scheduled to go to trial Monday, was granted a deferred judgment, which means if he abides by certain unspecified conditions for an undisclosed period of time, the guilty plea will be withdrawn and he will avoid sentencing. If he fails to meet expectations, he faces up to two years in prison and between $625 and $6,250 in fines.
I know what you're thinking: The guy already fucked up again, he's in trouble for swiping the Air Bud trilogy! Aha. He already pled guilty and was fined 100 dollars. (He probably paid by credit card. --Buddy Light*). The deferred judgment will start once his plea deal is accepted. BA-ZANG! Dougie Fresh is BACK, bitches! All he has to do is stay out of trouble for 24 months here in Iowa City, and...
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