Are you ready for some football?

By LPR Staff
Editor/POST-REGISTER

Historically speaking, I’m not a fan of college ball. In fact, if I were given a choice in the matter, college football would not be the default program on the television at my parents house on any given Saturday afternoon or fall holiday.
But because I have a father, a brother and nephews, and because I live in Texas

, I have no choice.
This year, though, I’m actually excited to see the season start. I’m delighted that Central Texas’ chain gangs… I mean college teams… are back on the field and doing their thing.
I’m hoping that means they’ll be off the streets and out of the bail bonding offices.
I started to wonder what was going on with college ball players this summer when it seemed like every newspaper I picked up had a headline about this Longhorn or that Aggie getting picked up on criminal charges. I almost started to think perhaps our college athletes are beginning to think they are bulletproof, after the Duke lacrosse team’s rape trial debacle.
And it almost makes sense when you remember that most 18- and 19-year-olds are pretty well certain they are 10 feet tall and bulletproof.
Unfortunately, last week, one of my beloved Bobcats took the cake on dumb things college athletes think they can get away with. Being arrested for DWI after a night on Sixth Street, I understand, even if I can’t condone it. Getting in a fight with someone and picking up an assault charge makes sense.
But trying to walk out of the supermarket with a basket full of groceries (some $475 worth, I heard) without paying for them is just…
The word dumb is not quite strong enough, I think. Insane might come closer, but judging by the reports given by San Marcos Police, the young man knew exactly what he was doing. He couldn’t have been crazy.
This begs two or three questions – the first of which being where does one put $475 worth of groceries when living in a dorm at SWT? I lived in those dorms. I was lucky there was room for myself, my roommate and our books.
The second question is why would this athlete give up his full-ride scholarship (which includes a meal plan, by the way) to steal some steaks and Dr. Pepper? Thanks to the university’s new zero-tolerance policy for lawbreaking athletes, he is now off the team and, effectively out of school.
And he never even got to grill the steaks.
I’m at a complete loss as to why trying to steal a basket full of groceries seemed like a good idea. I’m even more at a loss to understand what in the world made him think he could get away with it.
I find it sad that we live in a society where it seems our college athletes think they are above the law, and sadder still that we allow them to be role models.
But it’s really sad about the steaks.