Former Baylor football player pleads guilty to drug charges
I suppose this is what happens when football is finished with you and you never bothered to get an education...
(11/9/02 - WACO, Texas) — A former Baylor football player faces up to 10 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to possession of a chemical used to make methamphetamine.
Robert Strait, a running back who was the sixth-round draft pick by the former Cleveland Browns in 1994, was charged in July with three others as part of a conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.
In a plea agreement Thursday with federal prosecutors, Strait, 31, pleaded guilty to possession of pseudoephedrine, a lesser charge.
At sentencing Jan. 15, the judge will consider Strait's 1998 felony conviction in DeWitt County for delivery of cocaine and his misdemeanor conviction this year in McLennan County for driving with a suspended license, for which he is on probation.
It would seem that being able to carry a football while running into and through large, heavily-padded men doesn't exactly expand your job prospects.
Of course, Baylor isn't the only Texas university turning out those well-versed in the felonious arts:
Student gambling continuing problem at Texas Tech University
(11/9/02 - DALLAS) — Chris is a 31-year-old bookie who remembers when Lubbock authorities launched a crackdown on local gambling rings in the late 1990s. Convicted in that crackdown, he's back at work.
He and other bookies say they have raked in thousands of dollars every weekend under the nose of Lubbock law enforcement, the same officials who put dozens of bookies out of business in the attempted citywide purge nearly seven years ago. The crackdown followed an article in Sports Illustrated that singled out Tech as a gambling hot spot.
Today, student gambling in Lubbock is bigger than ever, according to a story in Saturday's editions of The Dallas Morning News. University officials do not dispute this, and parents back home may be none the wiser.
Tech administrators, as they did in 1995, acknowledge that illegal sports betting by students is taking place, but not to any greater extent at Tech than on any other college campus.
Well, of course not, silly. Boys will be boys, and besides, what else is one to do for entertainment in Lubbock? Of course, if the aforementioned administrators are former Geography majors, they would remember that denial is more than just a river in Egypt, eh??
Of course, things could be worse. You could be running a school that actually has a student honor code, like, say, the University of Virginia, only to find out that cheating is almost a way of life. Welcome to the real world....
I can remember times when, as a child I'd listen to adults moan about the world "going to hell in a handbasket". I think I'm beginning to understand their frustrations. Apparently, we have created a world where cheating, gambling, lying, and selling drugs are OK. And even if they're not, we've allowed our children to rationalize their bad behavior- after all, they see it all the time on TV from people who are considered "leaders".
If nothing else, we've created a world where personal accountability is optional. Anyone have a handbasket??
