for violating team rules about interviewing athletes.
That would be at Baylor:
Police charged Heath Nielsen, Baylor’s associate athletic director for communications, after James McBride, a reporter from the Keller, Texas-based Texas Blaze News, told police Nielsen assaulted him Nov. 5 after the Bears’ 62-22 loss to TCU in Waco, Texas. According to Waco TV station KWTX, McBride said he was attempting to take a photograph with a Baylor football player when Nielsen grabbed him by the throat and pushed him away, saying McBride was breaking the school’s rules against conducting interviews on the field after games.
Nielsen, who was placed on the leave of absence shortly after the alleged incident, was arrested Nov. 8. Those in need of a criminal attorney, following being arrested for a crime like assault, may do well to reach out to the likes of the Law Offices of Robert Tsigler, NYC.
But the Ducks are doing their best on the subject of assaults and reporters.
Dave Williford. (GoDucks photo)
While Duck Associate Athletic Director for Communications Dave Williford hasn’t been arrested for trying to strangle a reporter, he did threaten to yank a student-reporter’s press pass for reporting on a series of alleged assaults and an alleged strangulation by Duck football players:
Kenny Jacoby, the sports editor of the Emerald, joined me on the radio show on Friday to download on the story, and how his team’s access was threatened by the University of Oregon athletic department after the student newspaper contacted a key player involved directly. (UO failed/refused to coordinate an interview request so the students say they reached out themselves).
“We were actually called into the athletic department office and we were told if we do that again we were going to get our credential pulled,” Jacoby said.
Coach Mick Helfrich let the player accused of breaking an alumnus’s arm play on Saturday, and he caught the game winning pass, probably saving Helfrich’s $3.5M job for another year or two.
Perhaps, given that cowardly and mean-spirited attempts to bully the press are very much en vogue these days, Mr. Williford is simply acting in the spirit of college athletics and training the student for life as a journalist.
This would seem to be more of the same “National Enquirer” style “news” that the Emerald is becoming known for.
So, There were a couple locker room fights, which happen at least once a day at the Student Rec Center in pickup sports and intramurals…. So what?
And, there was an ambiguous situation where the police and DA determined that the student’s girlfriend was the “primary aggressor”.
If we’re going to forgive a Professor who screws up once at the end of her career for wearing Black face…. Then, I would hope that we could forgive a young college student at the beginning of his career.
I hate to be one of those “check your privilege” people. But, I really think that this case illustrates how middle class and upper class white guys with no experience in competitive sports have little understanding of what it’s like to grow up being working class and Black.
I’m no athlete, but I do recognize mental gymnastics when I see it…
Why do you assume I have “no experience in competitive sports”?
Polls don’t allow comments, so I’ll leave this here: Talk about push polling. The professor was not “dressing up as a black doctor while attempting to make a point about racism in America.” She was wearing blackface and an afro wig at a Halloween party. Whether or not that action deserves condemnation or ostracism, we should call it what it is. Not some bold stance on racism in America.
You misspelled Coach Helfrich’s first name. It’s “Mack”, like the Knife.
OK, OK, I googled it. It’s a song by Louis Armstrong about a murderous assault. It’s got nothing to do with the Duck baseball coach, and I think you should apologize to Marty. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-lHrDPjGfQ
In fact, it’s an English-language version of the song by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht for the musical “Three Penny Opera” (again, the English-language translation. I won’t put on airs and copy-and-paste the German).
As a kid, I first heard it in that context, not the Louis, or Bobby Darin, or any of the myriad other pop cover contexts. If that doesn’t show up in the googles, then we have a major cultural problem…
And what’s this have to do with Marv anyway?
Ha, I was just thinking about Threepenny Opera. Somehow Weimar-era nihilism is very apropos these days.
https://youtu.be/zMWc4h77e2o
Isn’t the point that Baylor/ Baylor football/ Baylor Administration suppressed the sexual assault of 17 women by 19 football players over the last 5 years the issue? The associate athletic director is still just operating on the ways things were before the scandal broke. Hopefully when justice is done all university employees involved in allowing this misconduct to occur will be looking for work outside higher education. This is a cautionary tale for UO.