Due to Suspensions and Dismissals All Around Them, Rest of Team has to Focus While Doing the Right Things

These are not good times with Spartan Football. Suspensions, future suspensions, dismissals, and potential further dismissals surround the program. Add to

These are not good times with Spartan Football. Suspensions, future suspensions, dismissals, and potential further dismissals surround the program. Add to that, the coaches are trying to recruit and look to the future and you have what could be a major snare for a rebuilding program. Caught in the middle are the young men who go to class, serve the community, and are “lumped” by some as part of the problem.

An angry Spartan Nation must not forget those who are doing things right

 

Coaches can’t have a “feel bad for me” moment. They have to be relentless recruiters trying to shore up the future. They are grown men paid well. They will be fine. Those that are in trouble have to wait for the hammer to fall as far as length of suspension, will there be warrants and legal issues, and even if Coach Dantonio will let them stay. Some are still waiting to see if they got caught or not. All of those are still the small part of this program. The other 80+ players have to be sitting back asking themselves what happened?

 

What happened was a group of immature and selfish teammates went against everything they have seen and been taught and acted like fools. Damn fools. I don’t care what happened, there is no excuse for the Rather Hall incident. NONE!

 

What happened was a head coach, who sees himself as much more than a coach, gave two young men a chance to earn their way back, and they, for lack of a better term, urinated on him. What happened is that each player who went to Rather Hall didn’t use the brain they allegedly have to stop and ask, “What are we doing?” If one did, he certainly had no influence in stopping the rest.

 

Yet, in the midst of all the anger and frustration are a group of young men, going to class, spending time with sick children, hitting the weight room, and watching film. A group of young men who will not wear T Shirts to class exclaiming that they are a good kids, but they are.

 

MSU won’t put them in front of a podium and let them talk about what they have done right. They are, however, the proverbial silent majority. They are the ones who make up the vast majority of this team. They are the kids who are the bedrock of Spartan Football. They are the ones that will lead this team out of this dark abyss.

 

They are the ones who are more embarrassed than any donor, fan, administrator or coach. They are the ones that will have to listen to the jeers and the taunts unfairly. They are the ones that will stand guilty among the public opinion that cries out (rightfully) for Mark Dantonio to drop a swift and sharp hammer on the perpetrators of this stupidity.

 

That doesn’t change that 75% of this team celebrated with family and friends after the banquet. It doesn’t change that those who did nothing wrong stand today in the wake of this black eye and are wounded also.

 

It also doesn’t change that each of the young men that aren’t part of this deserve some praise. They deserve to be recognized for doing what most athletes do and that is what is expected. 

 

For those that chose not to be part of this ignorant act of unintelligent bravado, we salute you today. You are the program. You are the ones whose integrity doesn’t deserve to be impugned. You are the players that make us proud.

 

Win by 50 or lose by 50 at the bowl, the Spartan Nation will be there to celebrate you. Not ONE player involved that went to Rather Hall should play in the bowl game. Not one. If any do, then shame on Spartan football. That bowl game is a reward for the hard work of the season; a season that didn’t yield the results we wanted and a season that was still ongoing 30 minutes after the football banquet.

 

We honor those that have done it right. For each of the players that were no part of the travesty at Rather Hall we salute you. This bowl game is for you. The mantra of this team is “We Are One.” Sadly, in the case of the Rather Hall fiasco you weren’t one team. You were one group of selfish individuals.

 

The group that wasn’t a part are one. They are one with the fan base and one with the program. This Bowl’s for you.