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NEWS, NOTES &
COMMENTARY
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The Bradsher Beat
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
By Bethany Bradsher |
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Police blotter eclipses good
storylines
By
Bethany Bradsher
©2008 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
Was it really just last month when you couldn’t
swing a purple foam hand on East Carolina’s campus without hitting one of
the national media members in town to do a feature on the new darlings of
college football?
Tuesday brought a new, smaller wave of media
attention, but this time it came for all the wrong reasons. It was revealed
that leading Pirate rusher Jonathan Williams was arrested on Oct. 5 for
resisting an officer and that a separate incident from Saturday is under
investigation.
Head coach Skip Holtz followed that bombshell
with the news of Williams’ indefinite suspension.
What we don’t know about this situation
certainly outweighs what we know. But a few things are as sure as the
sunrise: Fans are frustrated, coaches are dismayed, talent is wasted, and
the solid, hardworking young men on the ECU roster – the vast majority – are
sadly eclipsed by the few who have decided to major in bad choices.
If ECU manages to finish its season with the
same kind of spirit that marked its beginning and goes on to contend for a
conference championship, it will be thanks to those players who try to shine
so brightly that the cameramen will turn their flash away from the police
reports.
It’s those athletes, the Zack Slates and the Van
Eskridges and their ilk, who will keep fans hanging on through this latest
drama.
That perspective goes
well beyond the gridiron program. If upstanding football players aren’t
getting deserved attention amid the controversy, imagine what life is like
for the standouts in low-profile sports that are heroically representing
East Carolina day in and day out.
The Williams story has the potential to make the
Pirate Nation feel more like a third-world country. The anecdote: Get to
know the players and teams that wear purple and gold and excel in obscurity.
Pirates like these:
The women’s
soccer team is still on a matchless roll, still undefeated in the conference
with a 6-0-2 Conference USA record and its highest regional ranking ever.
The Lady
Pirates were ranked seventh in the Southeast by one poll and eighth by
another this week. With 11 overall wins, they have tied the school record
for most victories in a season, with three games left before the conference
championship.
——————
The women’s
golfers invited 20 other teams to the Greenville Country Club for the annual
Lady Pirate Intercollegiate this week – and showed their hospitality by
taking second place. Led by junior Abby Bools – an all-tournament selection
who finished tied for third overall with a three-day score of 220 – the Lady
Pirates notched their third top-three finish in four tournaments.
——————
For her part
in boosting the women’s swim team to a 4-0 record, senior Amanda Duncan has
been named C-USA Co-swimmer of the week. Duncan placed first in both the 100
and 200-meter butterfly in the Pirates’ most recent win against Davidson.
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It’s not the
kind of thing he wants press for either, but Brock Young should get a prayer
every time Williams gets a condemnation. Young and ECU recruit Ledrick
Eackles were assaulted and robbed in the parking lot of the Copper Beech
apartments late Saturday night. They will both be fine, and police found and
arrested the perpetrators in just days.
An episode
like that can be traumatic long after it occurs, and the support of Young’s
team and larger fan family will be like a balm with ECU’s first tip-off just
three weeks away.
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10/22/2008 01:56:41 AM |
