Online only: Violent behavior blows professional opportunity for Blount

By Casey Michel     9/10/09 7:00pm

I don't know LeGarrette Blount. I don't know if he were a Gold Glove champ at 15, or if he slept as a child under posters of Ali, or if his favorite movie consists of the words "Rocky" or "Balboa." (If they have both in the name, shame on him.)I don't know much about him. But I know that I'd want him on my side if I were ever in a brawl. And I also know that I shouldn't know that. If Blount had kept his wits, if he hadn't ransacked Boise State defender Byron Hout's head with his right fist, then I would only know the former University of Oregon running back as a beefy ball-carrier who could potentially bring the Ducks back to a BCS berth.

Instead, he's the thug who ruined Oregon's season, the brute who couldn't handle a few meaningless words from a headband-and-fauxhawk punk in the post-game mingling. Blount's hook reared and ripped into Hout's jawbone like a sledgehammer, sending the defensive end, whose team had just downed the Ducks 19-8 onto the blue turf of Bronco Stadium, tumbling into his teammates. A screaming-and-shoving match ensued, with Blount having to be restrained by teammates from further fracas.

He was wrong. He's lucky he hasn't been charged with assault. So what if his team had just put on one of its worst offensive showings in years? Sticks and stones and all that jazz. As soon as Blount connected, you knew the ramifications would be swift. An appetite for stringent punishments, parlayed by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, has trickled into the collegiate ranks, so you had to figure that Blount, a senior, would be facing at least a one-game suspension.

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But you would never figure that Blount's blow would knock him out for the entire year. Why? Because you're a sensible, empathetic person. You realize that Blount, by all accounts, has had minimal trouble with both coaches and the law, and that his presence on the team has been, on the whole, a positive one. Sure, his anger may get the best of him at times - whose doesn't? But his record is cleaner than Usain Bolt's drug tests, and his remorse has been all the more tangible in the media's recent glare.

Admittedly, Oregon Head Coach Chip Kelly was placed in an awkward position. In his first year as the Ducks' skipper, Kelly was forced to replace in-state legend Mike Bellotti, the man who partnered with Phil Knight to make Oregon a national powerhouse. In addition, Kelly had to deal with the implementation of Sportsmanship Week, a superficial, hearts-in-the-right-place movement that the NCAA is at best bandying about. Not exactly a perfect storm, per se, but certainly enough gusts to swirl the dust up in a hurry.

And I can't say I'm not proud of the Ducks for erring on the side of punishment. The entitled attitude that pervades big-time athletics - not at Rice, fortunately, but at the behemoths - can always be tamped down.

Unfortunately, Kelly didn't err with caution - he hopped on a jet and flew into an entirely different hemisphere. He axed Blount from the senior's final season. No longer will the running back be wearing the yellow and green (and whatever else Oregon decides to wear) of the Ducks, all because he let his emotions escape him for but a few seconds.

It's not as though Blount was unprovoked. Hout's jabbing and yammering was uncalled for, and the Bronco should be rightly reprimanded. He tapped Blount on the shoulder, turning his words into action, and Blount responded. It was harsh and vicious, but in the heat of battle, with the weight of such a heavy defeat on your shoulders, it's not hard to imagine where Blount's hook came from.

Now all the former Duck can hope for is that a prospective boxing promoter sees his work and reels him in. Because the only way Blount will enter the professional sporting world is in a ring; his chances of a life between the hashmarks are as real as the death panels Sarah Palin keeps spouting off about.

Blount's career is finished. He didn't electrocute a pack of unsuspecting pit bulls. He didn't drunkenly end a man's life with his vehicle. He simply swung a little too hard and placed his punch a little too well.

I'm hoping Kelly will reverse his decision - and I say this not from a fan's perspective, but from an empathetic one. After all, in this economy, you need all the job-hunting help you can get. But even when Blount does land a job, he won't be able to enter the workforce without the whispers following. His name took a bigger hit than Hout's ever will, and his life will forever carry the stain of the blow.

His career and his reputation are shot. That much, unfortunately, I know.

Casey Michel is a Brown College senior and Thresher editor in chief.

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