Can you tell me where in the following article Welch refers to Gamble's statement? The whole premise of criticism in this "commentary" is that MSU refuses to comment and that is where the BULL starts. You can't build a credible arguement on a bull**** premise.
June 30:
"Iam commenting this morning in the wake of the unfolding tragedy involving Branden Miller, John Lebrum, Jacques Wilson and Aaron Rich for one reason:
[b]Because Montana State University officials aren’t. [/b]
Normally, when an unseemly story breaks involving college athletes at any school, newspapers will report somebody saying something, even if it’s straight out of a well-worn spin handbook.
We’ll quote them saying that every effort is made to recruit athletes of character.
We’ll quote them reiterating that 98 percent of student-athletes are solid citizens, that it’s impossible with hundreds of student-athletes on campus to not have a few miscreants slip under the radar, and that student-athletes typically have fewer issues than the student body and society as a whole.
We’ll also quote them on all the good things happening at the university.
[b]Not so this day at MSU. [/b]
[b]The silence Thursday was deafening, even unsettling.[/b]
Never mind that all four names directly involved in a killing were, or are, connected to the school’s athletic department.
Never mind that Miller, an oft-troubled lost soul who flunked out of the basketball program in December, is charged as an accomplice to murder and could be executed.
Never mind that Lebrum, a former football player with an apparent short fuse, could meet a similar ending if found guilty of pulling the trigger on the gun that allegedly killed suspected cocaine dealer Jason Cody Wright on June 23.
Never mind that the alleged murder weapon was found, according to a district attorney’s affadavit, in an MSU basketball locker labeled “1 Wilson,” which would lead one to surmise that the locker belongs to sophomore-to-be Jacques Wilson.
And never mind that tires on a vehicle belonging to Rich, who played on the 2001 Big Sky Conference championship basketball team, were matched to tire tracks where Wright’s body was discovered in a wheat field west of Bozeman.
Obviously, there is plenty that MSU officials can’t talk about, most notably specifics of the case.
But there’s plenty they should be saying.
They should be saying that the latest in a string of embarrassing events in the athletic department has besmirched the name of a proud university once too often.
They should be saying that they will quickly learn how and why a gun could be in an athlete’s locker.
Above all else, they should be saying that, for all that’s right about MSU athletics, something is fundamentally very, very wrong and a re-evaluation of all hiring, recruiting and guidance processes will commence immediately.
Just since 2003, MSU has:
Seen an assistant head football coach, Joe O’Brien, imprisoned for distribution of methamphetamine.
Fired a women’s basketball coach, Robin Potera-Haskins, amid a player revolt.
Dismissed the starting point guard on the basketball team, Frank Brown, after his arrest on rape charges.
Seen Miller charged with partner assault and criminal mischief five months after he was dismissed from the basketball team.
And now, murder.
Allegedly involving four young adults who are in the Gallatin Valley only because Montana State brought them here to represent the school, the community and the state. Murder. You can’t file that one under, “Yeah, but every athletic department has its share of problems, too.” It might seem harsh to lay some of this tragedy at MSU’s doorstep. After all, whatever Wilson’s role is or isn’t, for instance, what we do know is that he’s the product of a solid home, the seemingly mature-beyond-hisyears son of a college coach who parented with a thundering velvet hand.
And, remember, Wilson’s name is in the mix at this point only because one of Miller’s guns was found in a locker bearing his name and number.
Miller was a dicier recruit, yes, yet thousands of athletes with challenged backgrounds like his land at colleges every year, and many use it as a launching pad to lifetime success.
He made curious choices here that were indicative of a desperate need for direction — even more than the considerable amounts he received from the basketball and academic staffs.
Yet in the 15 months I regularly interviewed him, he was softspoken, considerate and as cooperative as any Bobcat.
My lasting impression was that Miller seemed the one most in need of a hug.
Therein lies MSU’s piece of the responsibility puzzle.
Give school officials a pass, perhaps, for the ill-fated hirings of O’Brien and Potera-Haskins. Every large business has a few of those unavoidable skeletons in its closet.
Brown, Miller, perhaps Wilson and maybe even Rich are different.
MSU exploited their talents to further its athletic goals and fill its athletic coffers. The exchange was a free education and the promise to parents to provide guidance and a protective umbrella in this halfway house to adulthood.
For Brown and Miller, MSU became a dead-end — a tragedy for which they bear much, but not all, accountability.
We can only hope, then, that in their silence Thursday, MSU officials were contemplating the school’s role in the failure of these student-athletes, and how to prevent future tales of woe.
Sports editor Jeff Welsch is at
jwelsch@dailychronicle.com or 582-2623.
I must have read a different article than crazycat. Being a former journalist, I know that you never write an article, commentary or news, without first getting your facts straight.
