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- 3/17/19 UPDATE -- We've updated the permissions for our "Football" and "Commit to the G" recruiting message boards. We aim to be the best free board out there and that has not changed. We do now ask that all of you good people register as a member of our forum in order to see the sugar that is falling from our skies, so to speak.
Comments
Young people, who have access to that kind of money, will buy and possess things that they should not be able to have at that age. Proof that he is not mature enough to own a car like that is proven by the fact that he was caught driving it like a maniac and could have killed not only himself, but others. This is a serious lapse in judgement. If you know anything about Athens and the street where this occurred, driving a car on that road , at that speed, is pure stupidity. Sorry Smal - you need to be benched for a few games. Nobody is that special. Nobody.
since he wants to race I would show him the football field and stands and let him race up and down them about 100 times
It amazes me sometimes how quickly people want to punish others. These kids did something really **** and will pay a much stiffer penalty than any non-football player would. Let's take a look.
-Suspension of license
-Mandatory safe driving course to get license back
-Loss of 10's of thousands of dollars in NIL if not more in Smael's case
-Car impounded
-Fine by the county
-Suspension of on field playing time
-Drop in draft status (for Mondon) due to character concerns (could be 100's of thousands to millions of dollars
-Personal reputations will take years to reabilitate
So before all you saints who have never made a mistake pile on just remember these are human beings and young persons who need guidance not crucifixion. You people amaze me with your lack of empathy.
At this point, some of these knuckleheads have shown themselves to be hardheaded. I think Kirby should make the whole team sit through an hour long safe driving course for 5 days, taught by the dullest, most boring instructor they can find. The whole team has to do it every time this happens.
You don't think he has already done a bunch of this stuff. He has. Bottom line is other football schools with local police do not agrressively arrest everyone all the time for everything. No one can reasonably tell me that other kids with NIL deals at other schools do not have sports cars and speed. Of course they do. They just don't have the keystone police force Athens does. These guys spend more time locking up football players while illegal immigrants roam around killing jogger students. They literally are focused on the wrong things.
Did these guys do something ****. Yes. Should they have been arrested. No. Other schools must love our Keystone Cop routine in Athens. It embarrasses the state that everyone else in the country has figured out how to keep this stuff out of the newspaper and yet here in Georgia we keep making ourselves look like d u m b hillbillies.
Punishment and stern talkings-to are not the answers to the situation. Football is a sport that regularly leaves participants injured, and players have to develop a thick skin to suit up each week in the face of the risk. That thick skin also reduces their worry about injury or death behind the wheel.
Instead of trying to find the right stick, the coaches need to provide a sufficient carrot. Set up regular track days at Road Atlanta and a dragstrip, and take the players who maintain a safe driving record. Require players who want to take part to install monitoring devices on their cars. have cash prizes for the winners provided by an NIL partner. In short, give these guys a safer, more appropriate way to scratch that fast driving itch. That's the solution.
You are correct BigDawg, but apparently the penalties you list aren't making a big enough impact……I would add that every player that owns a car/drives be required to have a picture of Devin and Chandler hanging from their rear view mirror.
UGA athletes make up a very small percentage of arrests in Athens. The ACCPD needs to arrest people to stop this nonsense, UGA athelete or not. The athlete is more in the public eye than a regular student/citizen, so the media will have a field day with a story like this. Compare the UGA athletes arrested to all others arrested that week/month or year, and it will be a very small percentage of the total arrests for that time period. The ACCPD would have arrested both you, and me if we were caught doing the same thing. Mondon is no better than anyone else simply because he plays football at UGA. How would you feel if he injured, or killed someone in your family because of his immature, reckless actions? I've lost a family member to a s-t-u-p-i-d speeding, drunk driver, it's not a pleasurable experience. Especially when he basically got nothing more than a slap on the wrist. He got no jail time for killing someone, our great justice system at work..
I disagree. I actually live in the area and have noticed a significant decline in this type of behavior. However, every year new players come in and have to be 'given the education about driving'
NIL is pretty new. So the 'penalties' around NIL haven't really been around long enough for us to say they are not working. A stiff NIL penalty will go a long way to fixing this problem. The things people need to understand though are that football players getting paid is not Kirby Smart's problem. It is a national issue and not going away. The bigger question is if Kirby is doing everything other schools are doing and the result is different why is that?
I surmise it is the local police department which aggressively arrests whereas other police forces ticket and do not arrest. Why is that? It is an uncomfortable question but for those of us who have lived in the Athens area this is not a new problem it is a problem not just with football players either. They just aggressively police in this area and have some low quality leadership and some bad officers imo. It's been this way for over 30 years. Same ol story.
You've got illegals running around all over Athens and nothing happens ever. You've got homeless and people crapping in the streets and pissing all over the parks and nothing. The football player thing is just a symptom of a bigger problem with the police here. These kids should of been ticketed and maybe their license suspended. No drugs, no one hurt. Should of not been an arrest.
Speeding is one thing, but drag racing, the same thing that got your teammate killed? London should be released and Jones given 1 more chance. Time for ignorance to stop. JMO
Let me say upfront, London, Jones or any other UGA football player who breaks the law should be punished accordingly, as should any other person. That said, does UGA have a "traffic infractions" problem? The better question people should be asking, especially all the media clowns trying to make something greater of it, is it worse than society's "traffic infractions" problem, the answer is, absolutely not!
The fact is, most people speed and/or do **** stuff while driving, including most of the media clowns hyperinflating this issue, and way too many law enforcement officers charged with setting the example as well. This isn't a uniquely UGA football program problem, it's a societal problem, and one that started long before any player set foot on UGA's campus! Parents and society at large bears a significant portion of why speeding and other traffic infractions happen, because they've become common-place, and you're lying to yourselves if you think or say otherwise. One only needs to spend less than 30 minutes in rush hour traffic to see the exact same stupidity on full display, but it's also routine throughout the rest of the day as well.
So before people want to crucify Kirby Smart, his staff or UGA itself, I suggest they take a hard look in the mirror first! Because there's plenty of blame to be dished out before heaping any of it UGA's way. Of course, the ultimate blame lies with the players themselves, and they'll be punished accordingly, but they shouldn't be punished like their problems are unique to UGA, football or anywhere else for that matter, because they're not.
GO DAWGS!!!
I agree, 75mph isnt fast, on an interstate, but Broad Street in Athens, thats way too fast. I know, I've drove down that very busy, congested street hundreds of times over the years. Try speeding 35 mph over the 65mph posted limit on 85, 75, or 285 in Atlanta, or any city, and see what happens.. if they see you, you will be stopped. And more than likely, you'll be ticketed as a super speeder which carries a lot stiffer penalty than a typical speeding ticket. Vote this comment down as much as you like, it won't change my opinion, or affect me in any way.
Young dumb alpha males in fast flashy cars, Anyone surprised? We are plagued by this. How long before someone else is killed? Something has to be done by the coaches.
Ticket not arrest is what I agree with. Make em show up to court but arrest? Again, let's overpunish for certain crimes and totally ignore girls getting raped and killed and illegals running around and homeless pissing and crapping in the streets. But go ahead and convince me the football player sportscar speeding thing is the number one problem in Athens? Sure, you go with that dude.