The Nebraska Way

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Did Devaney cause a car accident while intoxicated?

What's funny is I don't even think Williams should necessarily be fired. Or that Riley was necessarily wrong in how he handled the players accused of gang rape. But you guys are impossible in your hypocrisies.

 
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knapplc said:
Mavric said:
This part I would disagree with. I'm pretty sure TO has stated that he thought it would help LP overcome him upbringing and give him a better chance in life.

Now you can choose not to believe that if you want or say that was misguided or not a good enough reason but it's definitely plausible.
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Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

How many times was Osborne "fooled?"

Riley Washington

Lawrence Phillips

Christian Peter

Tyrone Williams

Just off the top of my head. And that's the ones we publicly know about. My cousin was a high-ranking official in the State Patrol during the 1980s. Were the matters public, I could cite many, many more names of players involved in incidents throughout Osborne's career as head coach.

It's fine to remember Osborne's career with fondness. Let's just not be fooled about what the man was, or how he ran his ship.
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For starters, most of this discussion is based around a domestic violence incident which is probably held to be more egregious than quite of few - not all - of the other incidents so lumping them all together doesn't really work. I don't know exactly what happened or what became of every one but I doubt every one of them should have been kicked off the team. Should whatever punishment that was handed out been harsher? Possibly/probably.

But the statement was there was not other plausible reason why Osborne didn't suspend Phillips other than to win the National Championship. I think that statement is flatly false. There are definitely other plausible reasons, regardless of their perceived validity.

 
Boy, I sure am glad this thread devolved into this topic......again. Seems there are always a few (usually the same few) in the Osborne screwed up royal camp on this one.

Of course, given hindsight that is an easy position to take. I can understand it from younger people who just plain don't understand the prevalent atmosphere around college football in that time period or from those who have never read Osborne's own comments and thoughts on the matter. What disturbs me most is when older people who lived through it and were well cognizant of the events jump on that train of thought.

A few facts to consider;

Osborne has since acknowledged that, knowing what he knows now, he would've/should've handled it differently.

There were all kinds of unsavory characters and occurrences in college football in that time frame. Zero tolerance and no 2nd chances were not the norm. Only with time passing since does it look bad. At the time nobody felt it was very out of place (except for the typical CU Buff fan) for TO to handle it the way he did.

He didn't play LP just to help win games, but of course he wanted to win and to play the best RB he could. It's too easy to say that it was just to win and discounts the numerous accounts of TO stating that LP needed the structure of the team for his own good. He feared that only being on the team and only practicing would not accomplish what LP needed to keep his demons at bay so he gave him some guidelines to meet to be allowed to play. LP met those guidelines. In fact, by all accounts from team mates, he was about the best team mate a guy could hope for. Unfortunately, LP's later actions reinforced the idea that he didn't deserve a 2nd chance. It is pretty obvious now that nothing was going to save LP from his upbringing. I am proud and grateful that TO at least tried to help the kid. TO didn't simply forget about LP when his playing days were over. He remained in contact and was genuinely concerned about his well being. That fact does not lend any credence to the notion that TO just wanted to win games. It means he really cared about the kid as a person. Of course the easy path would've been to throw him to the curb and TO knew that at the time but still he tried to help save the kid. If it would've worked, he would be considered a genius. But since it didn't a few detractors choose to defame TO's character because of it. The Nebraska fans that join in this crowd of detractors make me sad. A person's actions can later be found to be wrong without them necessarily be wrong or lacking integrity at the time they made the decision. Why some people can't understand this, I'll never get.

 
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I've put up a lot of direct quotes on these topics.

I'm not going to get dragged into the personal attacks.

People can either read them or not.

 
BigRedBuster said:
StPaulHusker said:
cm husker said:
Did Devaney cause a car accident while intoxicated?
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To be fair, we probably wouldn't have known if he did back then.
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How about me personally witnessing him driving up to the East Campus union about 1:00pm on a Tuesday, parking (yes, driving) getting out of the car and smelling like a brewery?
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Not particularly relevant unless you saw him cause an accident. Did you see him cause an accident?
Also not so relevant based on 50 years of changes in culture.

 
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cm husker said:
BigRedBuster said:
StPaulHusker said:
cm husker said:
Did Devaney cause a car accident while intoxicated?
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To be fair, we probably wouldn't have known if he did back then.
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How about me personally witnessing him driving up to the East Campus union about 1:00pm on a Tuesday, parking (yes, driving) getting out of the car and smelling like a brewery?
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Not relevant unless you saw him cause an accident. Did you see him cause an accident?
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Was it before, during, or after the 6-5 season? This determines if it matters or not.

 
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