Bad News for Duke

[Ken Lovic]

Coach leaving/resigning- reminds me of Lefty Driesell.. when Len Bias lost his life- season was over, he was not a UMD player any more and Lefty took the fall or was part of the fall out.

Its unfortunate, whether its the best thing for the program or the players remaining will be seen. I would hope they would have allowed him to stay aboard to help the remaining players deal with this situation, the coach must know them best.

GT coaches- We always preach to our players- we are not your friends and we are not your parents. TELL US WHAT's GOING ON, we are here to help no matter the situation and lord knows after 10 years I have seen/dealt with a lot. I am sure others know the same

[SLUDoubleDeuce]

Depending on how things shake out, I could see the NCAA slapping Duke with a "Lack of Institutional Control" violation that would most likely be coupled with probation and revocation of scholarships. That violation is a big black mark on a university so I could see the administration, as much as I disagree with this, disbanding the team to prove to the NCAA that they have the situation under control.

Just another angle to think about. I see it as only a matter of time before the NCAA gets involved, which could lead to issues with other programs. Because once the NCAA starts looking there's no telling what dirt they'll find in the Athletic Dept.

On a sidebar, the story of Coach Pressler resigning ran 3 times on the local morning news in KC this morning. Considering that the majority of people in KC have no idea what lacrosse is, except seeing on ESPN over Memorial day while flipping channels, shows just how big this story has gotten.

[Jolly Roger]

So, you are saying he knowingly recruited players that might someday commit an alleged crime as this????

I meant this is a reason the administration would use to "encourage" him to accept the opportunity to resign were he hesitant to do so.

If you manage a child care center, do an inadequate background check and hire a pedophile, guess who getting fired and/or sued if something awful happens. It's a stretch, and I don't agree with it, but the reasoning could be applied.

[Brent Burns]

On a sidebar, the story of Coach Pressler resigning ran 3 times on the local morning news in KC this morning. Considering that the majority of people in KC have no idea what lacrosse is, except seeing on ESPN over Memorial day while flipping channels, shows just how big this story has gotten.

My local newspaper's sports section in Waco had that story on 3rd page. They just got it off from the AP wire.

This story will be on for a while until when the investigation is hopefully completed soon. After a few weeks, this furor will quiet down with some lingering effects later on.

[SLUDoubleDeuce]

FYI...not sure if anyone listen's to the Glenn Beck Show on the radio, but he's talking about this issue right now.

[LAXDawg14]

well if duke doesnt terminate the program.... i would think they would have a problem getting a new coach.... who would want to step into that mess?

[Hi-Line Lax]

Does anyone know if the players are allowed to leave the team and go somewhere else to play?

[Brent Burns]

I may be wrong, but I assume what the administrators at Duke would do at this point:

1) They will wait until all of the investigation is completely done through the legal channels.

2) They will then assess the whole situation by looking at all of the factors including what Rob, Sonny, et al. had already said about the sport being a "non-revenue" generator.

3) They will, of course, ask themselves, a very basic fundamental question, "Would it be worth our time to get a new coach?"

4) They would have to then present their findings and conclusions to the board of directors or board of regents or whomever they are called at Duke.

There are probably some steps that I may have overlooked.

[Rob Graff]

Cnn is having a "poll" vote about whether Pressler is being scapegoated via his "resignation".

As of about 10 am CT was running about 75-25 that he is being scapegoated.

Interesting....

[LaxRef]

Depending on how things shake out, I could see the NCAA slapping Duke with a "Lack of Institutional Control" violation that would most likely be coupled with probation and revocation of scholarships. That violation is a big black mark on a university so I could see the administration, as much as I disagree with this, disbanding the team to prove to the NCAA that they have the situation under control.

"Lack of institutional control usually refers to the school not keeping things like academic fraud, recruiting violations, player payments and so on in check; the school "looks the other way" while this sort of thing goes on. These are things the NCAA worries about because they confer a competitive advantage to the school.

I can't recall NCAA penalties ever being imposed due to criminal behavior of athletes not directly related to sports.

[Brent Burns]

Cnn is having a "poll" vote about whether Pressler is being scapegoated via his "resignation".

As of about 10 am CT was running about 75-25 that he is being scapegoated.

Interesting....

Something new for y'all... it is nothing new for most of the deaf people in US. When we sign "very interesting", it is based on numbers associated with the sign. We use 2 for "very" by touching the ends of both fingers and move them away from each other; "5" by placing both hands with open-ended "5" handshape on our chest and them the "five" becomes "8" which becomes the sign for "interesting." That becomes 258 which means very interesting.

End of the lesson in sign language and "play" on numbers, that is interesting about the poll on Mike Pressler. I forgot the name of the show last night when my wife and I caught the captioned discussion on the Pressler resignation. It was a lady who was asking a local radio reporter in NC and a defense lawyer a lot of questions about the Duke lacrosse situation. She had some good probing questions including about an email from an alleged Duke lacrosse player. I think that show was after 8 pm CST.

[Dan Wishengrad]

In show biz there's the old saying that "there's no such thing as bad publicity". I thought of this last night, when at work I tuned the TV to CNN for the 5:00 (8:00pm EST) news and the lead story was about the Duke situation. The anchor led off with a statement that said (I will paraphrase as I didn't write it down):

"In lacrosse an unsettled situation is when the defensive is not properly positioned, usually due to a loose ball or a failed clear. But the term 'unsettled situation' has a new meaning when discussing the Duke Lacrosse mess..."

The irony was that while here was a situation deemed worthy of being the lead story on the national news. They were explaining a little about the game and its terminology, while at the same time showing footage of a Duke practice -- line drills, shooting practice, etc. in the background. For years I have been praying that somehow lacrosse would gain greater national exposure. I never dreamt that the national media would be showing action footage and defining "unsettled situation" to an unknowing public at large.

While the context is certainly very negative, is it still a possible that lax is somehow benefitting -- in a perverse way of course -- from gaining such widespread exposure from the national media?

[StrykerFSU]

I could have sworn that I heard that same unsettled situation analogy on Sportscenter last night. They were also discussing the scandal on O'Reilly last night with a student from Duke, I believe the student president.

[Dan Wishengrad]

Yeah, my bad -- It WAS Sportscenter on ESPN -- they just replayed it this morning. But they WERE indeed discussing the Duke mess as the lead on CNN News last night too, with practice footage. So much (negative) coverage everywhere it's all running together in my mind!

But my point still stands -- can all this lacrosse discussion somehow prove to be a positive in the long run, once this story has it's "fifteen minutes" and dies away?

[SLUDoubleDeuce]

Depending on how things shake out, I could see the NCAA slapping Duke with a "Lack of Institutional Control" violation that would most likely be coupled with probation and revocation of scholarships. That violation is a big black mark on a university so I could see the administration, as much as I disagree with this, disbanding the team to prove to the NCAA that they have the situation under control.

"Lack of institutional control usually refers to the school not keeping things like academic fraud, recruiting violations, player payments and so on in check; the school "looks the other way" while this sort of thing goes on. These are things the NCAA worries about because they confer a competitive advantage to the school.

I can't recall NCAA penalties ever being imposed due to criminal behavior of athletes not directly related to sports.

But if the allegations that are floating around by many people of the Administration looking the other way when they first heard about this, waiting a week (or so) before cancelling games, etc, that may give cause for the NCAA to poke it's nose in. This has happened before (Ricky Clemens at Mizzou for one, Cinncinatti BBall program and two i can think of off the top of my head) and most times does result in the school taking it's own action, hoping to avoid NCAA penalties. While you may be right that NCAA penalties haven't specifically arisen out of off field criminal behavior, often off field incidents lead to NCAA investigations, and anything can come out of those. The NCAA hates bad pub as much as anyone, so you know that they are strategizing how to handle this.