[UPDATE w/ note on LAT's shoddy reporting] Hasiak Returns To Practice

Bumping this again. LAT has a new report on Hasiak today. I wanted to incorporate it in this post because it just shows again how irresponsible they were in their earlier reporting concocting nonsense about Hasiak leaving the program for an indefinite amount of time without any verification. GO BRUINS. - N

Bumped. GO BRUINS. - N

I wrote yesterday that I wasn't really all that worried about Hasiak and had full confidence in CRN that he will do whatever is necessary to help out a kid who sounds like is going through a tough freshman year (which is not unusual at a huge school like UCLA while being thousands of miles away from home).

Well Gold reports that Hasiak has returned to practice and he had his comment from CRN:

"All of these things require conversations between the head coach and the individual, and I'm just glad to have him back. He's on our team, he's in full participation mode now. I'm not worried about seeing much from Stanley. I want him just to be like everybody else on the team. Do what we're asking him to do, do it with a great attitude and enjoy that he's at a great university.
"The rest will take care of itself."

Amen. Again the best thing everyone can do here to stop the speculation and give the kid some space. If anything I'd suggest in situations like this we hope for the best and wish him luck.

GO BRUINS.

UPDATE (N): The LA Times also has little bit more on Hasiak. Stanley is not going to be traveling to Palouse this weekend. He is going to take his time. CRN is excited to have him back:

"He's back in good stead and we're excited that he's back," Neuheisel said after Thursday's practice.

We will see him back on the field when he is ready and coaches think he is up to game speed. We should let the kid take as much time as he wants and get everything in place so that he can have total focus on both school work and football. GO BRUINS.

UPDATE II (N): Looks like the LAT did some really shoddy reporting on this early on which exacerbated a sense of crisis that really didn't exist. The paper ran a correction on its UCLA beat reporter's embarrassingly shoddy reporting on the story (emphasis added):

UCLA football: The UCLA football FYI in Friday's Sports section reported that freshman guard Stan Hasiak did not travel with the team for the Oct. 31 game against Oregon. That game was at Oregon State. Also, Wednesday's UCLA football FYI contained contradictory information on Hasiak's whereabouts after reporting that he had gone home to Hawaii for an indefinite period. One sentence said it was not known whether Hasiak had returned to Los Angeles as of Tuesday; a sentence two paragraphs later said he had returned to Los Angeles. Hasiak was in fact back in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

Nice work Chris Foster. Not

GO BRUINS.

UPDATE III (N): Hasiak has been back at practice with the scout team. Chris Foster finally caught up with him to close the loop on his shoddy reporting from previous week:

"I kind of expected to get playing time, and I was hoping to get it, but things didn't go my way," Hasiak said. "But it was never anything with my teammates.

"There are some things I can't talk about. I had to learn to deal with it and change my attitude about it. Going home and hearing what my dad and uncles had to say, I really took that to heart."

Hasiak returned to UCLA last week and, after meeting with coaches, was back at practice Thursday.

"Stan's in good graces," Coach Rick Neuheisel said. "We're just trying to take things slow with him. We want him to work hard and get himself going again."

For now, that means working on the scout team. There is a small chance that Hasiak could get a medical redshirt year, as he has had shoulder and ankle injuries this season.

"I'm going to be positive," Hasiak said. "The coaches want me to help out the defense by giving them a good look [on the scout team] and that's what I'm doing. I have to enjoy what I've got right now. It's my freshman year and I should be happy with things."

May be you will now drop your pursuit of non stories and actually write about - oh I don't know - matchups, game strategies and other team's storylines Chris.

GO BRUINS.