In the wake of his suspension, here is what Dez Bryant posted on his Facebook page:
“This is why I’m suspended…..I went to Deion sanders house ….and the NCAA found out…..they ask me if I been to his house I told them no…I thought it was a violation…but it wasn’t… so I told them I went to his house… I lied to …them and I shouldn’t have….and I’m not suspended for the rest of the season….I’m sorry osu!!”
Which reads a little differently than his formal statement, but so be it.
As Deion Sanders said, the kid panicked. What’s strange about that is that I’m not sure why. It wasn’t like this was some very recent development, or that the school didn’t know about the relationship.
… Sanders said he was asked two years ago to mentor Bryant because of his difficult past; his mother served time in prison on a drug-sale conviction. Sanders said that before he started mentoring Bryant, he called an Oklahoma State assistant for approval.
“When Dez is late to class, the coach calls me,” Sanders said. “When Dez doesn’t show up for this, the coach calls me.”
Given that, you would think OSU would have been proactive enough to let Bryant know what was and what wasn’t an NCAA violation in that setting. It’s certainly to no one’s discredit that they were trying to give the kid some support.
But it’s the timing that interests me. It’s a two-year relationship that the NCAA started digging into last summer, according to Sanders. So when did the NCAA and, in turn, OSU realize that Bryant had lied to investigators?
… Though he was not in uniform for OSU’s last game, Bryant still led the team out of the tunnel and onto the field against Grambling State.
Wednesday’s dismissal makes you wonder if Bryant actually was held out of that game because of a lie, and not because of a bad hamstring.
Like I said, interesting…
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Deion really needs to go away. We have now had him affect the eligibility of Bryant and Noel Devine, as well as being one of the primary forces behind Michael Crabtree not signing until yesterday.
It is likely that there are other kids out there with whom he has been dealing.
I wonder if Eugene Parker will be representing Bryant and Devine next year?
At some point, the NCAA will have to look at Sanders as a pimp for Eugene Parker, as I am sure that PrimeTime will be getting a cut of Parker’s commission.
College football has managed to keep a small distance from itself and the disgusting world of college basketball, but we are starting to see more cases like Bryant’s and the running back who was pimped out that we will be playing this week.
I do not think that football will ever get as bad as basketball, because when it comes down to it, football is ruled by toughness and results, and basketball is ruled by hype and reputation.
Still, it is troubling to see these occurrences cropping up in various places.
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I agree that Deion is looking like an overall negative force. Time will tell.
But this NCAA violation is asinine. So the kid lied. I’m sorry NCAA, but you aren’t the government. If someone lies about something, you don’t get to just automatically punish someone for that. The lie needs to be a material lie to cover up a violation, otherwise you just suck it up.
The NCAA is so full of itself it makes me sick.
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