Those two cops need a bit of punishment. I hope they're at least made to apologize.
This thread makes me sick at my stomach. Day after day we see posts gloating over who gets arrested at Miami, Florida State, South Carolina, Tennessee and our other rivals. Yet, when one of our own gets arrested, it must be that the cops are wrong. Please, please take off your rose colored glasses and admit that the cops are not always wrong, and that our players are not little lord fauntleroys who spend Saturday evenings at church. Believe me, you don't want to have the police responsibility to monitor bar parking lots on Saturday night.
As big a Bama fan as I am, I must say it gets tiresome reading how persecuted we are by every official body from the NCAA to the Tuscaloosa police. For heavens sake, the local policemen are probably some of the biggest Tide fans around.
THEY were out to get us for Albert Means.
THEY are out to get us in parking lots of local bars.
WE'RE NOT PARANOID, THEY really are out to get us.
Please keep in mind that never once, no, not even once, has anyone shown that our people did not do the things for which we were punished. Quite the contrary, the NCAA demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that our backers did do the things of which they were accused. Do you recall that the University really did not put up any kind of defense against the charges? And for good reason. They were true, and we must face that fact. Even we as fans accepted that the charges were true and turned to specious arguments about NCAA "tactics" and vindictiveness. We could not argue the case, so we argued the methods.
Have you never heard of noblesse oblige? Our players are accorded every possible perq from adulation to worship. And for that privilege the players have responsibilities to their fans, chief among which is the responsibility not to do stupid things like get drunk and start fights in bar parking lots after midnight on a Saturday night/Sunday morning. Great damage has been done to our reputation, and no kind of police apology can erase it. In fact, the fallout from a police apology would simply give credence to those who want to believe that our people cheat. I do not live in Alabama and talk sports with fans from major Universities all over the east coast. To a person they think we cheat, and incidents like this one just make my life miserable when I have to face them and hear the smugness in their accusations of "what do you expect? It's another Alabama thing."
For heavens sake let's get over this persecution insanity and get on to winning football games. President Witt and the University administration have gone to great lengths to correct a bad situation and put our recent bad past behind us. Now, let's us as fans also put these bad things behind and never, never assume that behind every charge there is a sweet little innocent Bama backer who is clean as a whistle and gentle as a lamb.
I am now prepared to suffer the slings and arrows of every ad hominem epithet in the book. You folks have shown the propensity to react that way. I sincerely hope that the mods will let this post stand, because it will show exactly the kinds of attitude I have addressed above. I love Alabama. I love the Crimson Tide. I love the University. But I tire of the holier than thou attitude that our coaches, backers and players can do no wrong.
We could accomplish great things if we accepted that bad things can happen and demanded that perps get punished. We should demand that people in positions of responsibility not let Alabama be dragged through any more mud. Our great University deserves nothing less than our best effort.