This week another player from Pete Carroll's football program found himself in trouble with the law. Former USC defensive end Frostee Rucker is now in the pros (drafted by the Bungles from Cincy). So he technically is no longer associated with Pom Pom's football program. Yet he is in trouble now because of his actions while he was playing for Pom Pom. And this is serious. He is in trouble because of allegations of domestic abuse:
Former USC defensive end Frostee Rucker has been charged with two misdemeanor counts of spousal battery and two counts of vandalism, a spokesman for the Los Angeles City Attorney's office said Wednesday.
Rucker, who was selected by the Cincinnati Bengals in the third round of the NFL draft in April, was charged on Tuesday, said Frank Mateljan, a spokesman for the city attorney's office. Mateljan said Rucker's former girlfriend filed the complaint a few months after an incident that allegedly occurred at a party last August.
Mateljan said the woman suffered minor injuries during the incident, and that her cellphone and Blackberry were damaged.
If convicted, Rucker, 22, faces up to one year in jail for each of the battery charges and six months for each of the vandalism charges, Mateljan said.
This should be a big story even though the Times for some reason tucked it in their wire section of the paper. This incident took place while Rucker was playing for Peter Carroll at USC. This is just adds to the systematic and unmistakable pattern of violence and lawlessness (allegations thereof) that have prevailed in Carroll's USC program since he took over few years ago. So many questions should arise from this? For example, why in the world Carroll brought someone into his program who had a history of domestic violence:
Rucker, who was selected by the Cincinnati Bengals in the third round of the NFL draft in April, was charged on Tuesday, said Frank Mateljan, a spokesman for the city attorney's office. Mateljan said Rucker's former girlfriend filed the complaint a few months after an incident that allegedly occurred at a party last August.
Mateljan said the woman suffered minor injuries during the incident, and that her cellphone and Blackberry were damaged.
If convicted, Rucker, 22, faces up to one year in jail for each of the battery charges and six months for each of the vandalism charges, Mateljan said.
Rucker transferred to USC from Colorado State in fall 2002. In April of that year, he was charged in Colorado with sexual assault and indecent exposure. He eventually accepted a one-year deferred sentence on a misdemeanor harassment charge.
That is incredible. So Carroll brought in an individual into his football program who had a history with charges of sexual assault. Did USC provide enough counseling programs to Frostee Rucker? To give credit where credit is due some Trojans are not happy about this and are going as far as to speculate there may have been a cover-up by USC:
Well this one is different, this incident happened in August 2005 and it appears to have been covered up until now. THAT IS UNACCEPTABLE! When will Pete Carroll finally crack down on all this bad behavior? I'm happy with all the winning and accolades that he has brought SC over the past few years, but the price is too high. Up until this point SC has run a fairly clean program. There have been very few high profile incidents associated with the program until now.
That is of course inexcusable. And we should commend Paragon for speaking up and taking Carroll to task over this. You'd think the media in the LA papers would do their job and explore the tough questions even some USC fans are asking and questions that are obvious to rest of us. But instead of exploring tough questions, media shills such as Scott Wolf (Trojan beat writer for the Daily News who happens to be a USC alum) is reporting on how Rucker is all lawyered up. Yes, the same lawyer (who happens to be a UCLA alum) is representing Rucker who also represented SC QB Sanchez in his sexual assault case. Sanchez of course got off.Well at this point it is too easy to pick on Peter Carroll out of control thuggish program. The police blotter involving Trojans is not normal. Not every program has this kind of rap sheet (BTW M needs to update that rapsheet). There is clearly a problem at USC and Carroll is not helping himself when he appears so casual and trivial about his athlete's trouble. Instead of worrying about his athletes following the letter of the law, he worries about them not missing a game. And the media lapdogs in LA are doing nothing to call him out on it.
Now that all said right now we also have issues on our end. Sure our rap sheet is nothing like Trojan's police blotter. But we also have a problem too. Don't forget Karl Dorrell hired a football coach who had a history with spousal abuse. Yeah the Bruins who are pointing out to Rucker should not forget about the track record of UCLA's current TE and Special Teams coach John Wristen:
Lafayette police arrested Wristen six years ago for domestic violence, and Hagan was arrested for drunken driving in 1997, according to police and sheriff's reports.
Wristen swatted his 4-year-old son's thigh and elbowed the child in the chest area, according to a police report. He then put his wife in a headlock as she tried to leave, according to the report.
Police arrested Wristen on suspicion of four misdemeanor charges: harassment, child abuse, false imprisonment and third-degree assault. In a deal with prosecutors, Wristen pleaded guilty to the assault charges, according to court records.
That was from Brian Dohn's report. We raised our objection back then and it remains in effect today. I wish these inviduals with history of domestic violence best of luck in terms of rehabbing their lives, but that should not take place in the world of college football. They should try to get their lives back together in a world that doesn't thrive on controlled rage and violence. There is no place for individuals with history of domestic violence in the world of college football.Wristen swatted his 4-year-old son's thigh and elbowed the child in the chest area, according to a police report. He then put his wife in a headlock as she tried to leave, according to the report.
Police arrested Wristen on suspicion of four misdemeanor charges: harassment, child abuse, false imprisonment and third-degree assault. In a deal with prosecutors, Wristen pleaded guilty to the assault charges, according to court records.
We know most of the Trojans are morally corrupt and they will justify anything in the name of football championships and wins. Most of them do not care about accountability. But we should be above that. It's too bad Dorrell chose to bring in individuals with that kind of track record into Westwood. This is why he makes it so hard to respect him as the head coach of UCLA football.