Quote Originally Posted by 1inStripes View Post
As much stuff as has went on at UT the past couple of years, I know that feeling. Some of that stuff could be falsified, no doubt about it. The photos of him with Shala even make it look bad since it is someone of authority although she may have not known what was going on within the department. I'm wondering what the folks at Mizzou are thinking about Haith right now too.
True. Also--don't think that these kids in the past few years, being UM players, couldn't get into nightclubs/strip clubs on their own, and were just there...and then this dude just walked up to them as a big fan and wanted a picture...and is now trying to take things 10 steps further when these folks he thought he was "tight" with wouldn't help him out.

Al Golden said something really good in an interview today, so good, I'll quote the article I'm pulling it from directly:
Golden said if any student-athletes did take improper benefits that "I would hope we would learn from them. We're in an educational setting, and it's no different than if a student makes a mistake on campus. We just don't toss them out, turn our back on them. We try to educate them. And they're all at an age right now (where) certainly if they were exposed to Mr. Shapiro clearly we have to make sure we prevent that from going forward. So how do you do that? Well, you do that by getting to the facts, the truth. How did this guy, if he did, get around our players like that? Me as a head coach, I want to know. And I know our assistant coaches want to know because we want to make sure it never happens again. It shouldn't happen."
"We're just trying to move forward," Golden said. "Whatever the number is being interviewed right now, being named, that makes up less than 10 percent of our team. It's really important to understand that we have a lot of guys in that locker room that do things the right way, that come from great families and have made good decisions and that want to improve today and get better. We have to manage to the team and not just to guys who, if they did make a mistake ... we don't want to just manage to them."

He added that "This is a very complicated issue, obviously, because of the source and allegations."

* Asked how hard it is to coach in these circumstances, Golden said, "I'm not going to say it's not difficult, but I'm standing here in front of (the media) because I want to make sure we get it right, make sure as quickly as we can get to the bottom of whatever happened, then we can move forward. I wasn't here when it happened. For me and my staff and the student-athletes, we're trying to get to the bottom of it so we can move forward. The only way you do that is to cooperate with the NCAA and get the truth."
Regardless of what happens, the guy in charge of the football team NOW wants to make sure this stuff doesn't happen ever again at UM, and he wants the truth about what happened so the program can face the music and move forward. In the face of all the allegations, that's comforting to me. I'd also say Jim Larranaga is the same way as far as any allegations against the basketball team goes as well.