James Still sentenced
Just as I was about to submit my basketball report, this just broke. Former Eastern forward James Still has been sentenced to fifteen years, four to be served in prison and eleven to be served on probation. Considering the nature of the assault, it is difficult to argue with the necessity for jail time.
Read our extensive coverage here and here and here and here if you want to get caught up on the sordid mess. All the questions remain, from “Why was it appropriate to bring Still into the program” to “Did you realize you were violating your own Student-Athlete Discipline Policy when you allowed him to play?”
The word from the Athletic Department was that the gag on any information about Still would be lifted after sentencing. We will see if they hold to that over the next couple of days.
Whoever recruited this now convicted, then merely accused, felon to EMU should be held accountable for doing serious harm to EMU. Over the years, many non-athlete students have complained about the “hoodlum behavior” allowed to prevail among EMU athletes, which I am sure is an unfair generalization. But the perception that EMU athletes are often problems for the campus does exist. So who recruited, and allowed the recruitment of, James Still? As the Providence news article you link to states, Still “and another former teammate, Johnnie Lacy, were charged with beating Yerkin Abdrakhmanov back in 2010 in an unprovoked, random act of violence. Police said the two had chosen their victim at random — deciding to attack the next male they saw. Abdrakhmanov suffered a broken nose, a broken eye socket, and several other serious injuries.” Still was arrested with the victim’s blood literally on his hands. EMU recruited this criminal. Why? Doing so seems to be a deliberate effort to harm EMU, and to underscore how removed from the University’s real life of academic achievement the Athletic Department’s priorities are.
Bravo to this blog for keeping on this story.
Any truth to rumors that our AD is interviewing for another AD job with another school?
I read it (here) that he interviewed in Georgia. We need to get over it and just understand that if we hire certain people with larger career aspirations, that will always be the case.
One can argue that (in athletics) is has not worked out well in the last 15 years or so … one could also argue once we got a school prez that wants to be here, things got better.
From the football coach on down, EMU needs to hire people who believe this is the end-all job and let them build.
Dr Gragg is believed to have been one of five finalists for Georgia Tech’s AD opening, but he did not get the job. Source: http://www.ajc.com/news/sports/bobinski-introduced-tech-ad/nTz9k/