KD makes the right call on Medlock

by Nestor on Dec 12, 2005 5:28 AM PST in Football

Everyone who reads this blog regularly know we are not big fans of Dorrell. But KD deserves lot of praise in how he is quickly addressed the Medlock situation. KD suspended Medlock for the Sun Bowl and according to Dohn, he may have played his last game at UCLA:

Placekicker Justin Medlock was suspended indefinitely and ruled out of the Dec. 30 Sun Bowl against Northwestern by UCLA coach Karl Dorrell on Sunday, a day after Medlock was arrested on suspicion of felony driving under the influence of alcohol with injury.

Dorrell acted swiftly, and publicly, meeting with Medlock before announcing the discipline.

"He understands the high standards with which we expect our players to represent the program and has always met those standards," Dorrell said in a statement. "Justin apologized to me and wanted me to express his apologies to his teammates. He made a mistake and he understands that there are penalties when a player violates our rules."

It is possible Medlock played his last game at UCLA. C.J. Niusulu was the last player to be suspended indefinitely by Dorrell. Niusulu, who had a handful of discipline issues, transferred to Portland State.

Let's hope the kid learns important lesson for this, and I think it is also important to highlight his side of the story. There were implications that Medlock might have abandoned a passenger when he crashed his car. Here is more on that:

According to the incident report, Medlock was driving northbound on Interstate 405 at the Manchester Boulevard on-ramp just before 3 a.m. Saturday when he lost control of his 1998 Toyota Tacoma and struck a call box. The truck overturned.

Passenger Hannah Jun, a junior golfer at UCLA, was transported to UCLA Westwood Trauma Center with a neck injury. She does not need surgery and is expected to make a full recovery, UCLA said in a statement.

Medlock was arrested about 1 miles from the accident scene.

Milton Grimes, Medlock's attorney, said his client tried to help Jun out of the car but could not, nor could he find his cell phone.

"He ran up the exit ramp to a service station to get assistance ... he saw a police vehicle and flagged it down and said he needed help," Grimes said. "He was trying to get help for the young lady. He didn't abandon the scene."

What a mess. Let's hope they all get this straigtened out. Football should be the last thing on his mind. By the way, across town we are still waiting for Pom Pom to suspend his (alleged) student assaulting LB Ray Malauga any day now.

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