Mickey Joseph Arrested For Assault

Lorewarn said:
The issue isn't so much that this stuff happened under his watch (I mean, that is still an issue, but not the one being focused on right now); it's moreso that TO perpetuated a myth that he and this place were different, and that we all happily ignored inconvenient truths to believe it. It's one thing to protect sexual assault felons and players charged with attempted manslaughter - it's another to from the same mouth espouse that we run an ethical, noble, stoic, Christian program without stain. "More Than Winning".

And what was best for himself to be successful and stay on top.

Would we have been winning championships at all if we weren't recruiting ethically dubious kids?
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We would not have. Why TO didn’t get his like Oklahoma/Miami and the others,  is baffling. I guess when you pretend to be a man of God you get a pass on what you’re actually doing.  
 

Barry was a dirtbag- I don’t think he would disagree- so he was treated as such. Others were as well. TO pronounced his love of the lord, came up with catch phrases like “more than winning”, had a distain for drugs, and looked like a humble servant and wholesome family man and so he got a pass. What a narcissist. 
 

The program should have been punished in the 90’s. So remove his name from the field as an act of exorcism and we can win again- the right way.  Or dare I say the Rhule way 

 
LennynSquiggy said:
From everything I've read on this, Riley Washington asked Osborne to hold a handgun for him and Osborne obliged until he found out the weapon may have been used to commit a murder and then he (Osborne) notified the police. This is completely different than the narrative you are pushing.
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Wait, wait, wait....

First of all, someone correct me if wrong, wasn't it Tyrone Williams, not Washington, who had the gun that TO locked away? Secondly, the way you write this, it sounds like a totally casual thing for a player to go to a coach and ask him to hold on to a freaking handgun for him. Even if we knew no other information, that is suspicious as hell and no responsible adult would simply hold onto a gun for a college player who asks him to. 

What have you read that is different than this narrative? Link?

 
LennynSquiggy said:
From everything I've read on this, Riley Washington asked Osborne to hold a handgun for him and Osborne obliged until he found out the weapon may have been used to commit a murder and then he (Osborne) notified the police. This is completely different than the narrative you are pushing.
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I'm not pushing anything. That's what has been out there for decades.

 
Lorewarn said:
The issue isn't so much that this stuff happened under his watch (I mean, that is still an issue, but not the one being focused on right now); it's moreso that TO perpetuated a myth that he and this place were different, and that we all happily ignored inconvenient truths to believe it. It's one thing to protect sexual assault felons and players charged with attempted manslaughter - it's another to from the same mouth espouse that we run an ethical, noble, stoic, Christian program without stain. "More Than Winning".

And what was best for himself to be successful and stay on top.

Would we have been winning championships at all if we weren't recruiting ethically dubious kids?
Click to expand...
This is a bad take imo.

All programs were held to a different standard in the 90s. It wasn’t just Nebraska with these problems. We just happened to be successful in that time period. Probably best to not use 2010s and 2020s standards to judge the 90s in hindsight. Seems revisionist.

 
JJ Husker said:
This is a bad take imo.

All programs were held to a different standard in the 90s. It wasn’t just Nebraska with these problems. We just happened to be successful in that time period. Probably best to not use 2010s and 2020s standards to judge the 90s in hindsight. Seems revisionist.
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But the others got spanked. We got trophies. 

 
Ulty said:
Wait, wait, wait....

First of all, someone correct me if wrong, wasn't it Tyrone Williams, not Washington, who had the gun that TO locked away? Secondly, the way you write this, it sounds like a totally casual thing for a player to go to a coach and ask him to hold on to a freaking handgun for him. Even if we knew no other information, that is suspicious as hell and no responsible adult would simply hold onto a gun for a college player who asks him to. 

What have you read that is different than this narrative? Link?
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We are both sorta right. Washington and Williams were both involved in incidents involving firearms. My apologies for my somewhat inaccurate memory on this.

https://vault.si.com/vault/1995/09/25/coach-and-jury-nebraska-players-charged-with-crimes-have-a-steadfast-ally-in-the-man-who-runs-the-program-tom-osborne

Riley Washington, a junior wingback, continues to practice with
the Cornhuskers despite having been charged with attempted
second-degree murder and use of a weapon to commit a felony in
connection with the Aug. 2 shooting of 22-year-old Jermaine Cole
at a Lincoln convenience store. Cole told Lincoln police that he
and Nebraska undergraduate assistant football coach Abdul
Muhammad were fighting when Washington pulled his gun and fired,
saying, "Your life is gone." On Sept. 11, two days before
Washington pleaded not guilty to both counts, Osborne said, "I
think there is a very, very good chance that Riley didn't do
what he's accused of. I've talked to a lot of people.... I feel
pretty comfortable about Riley's case."

On Sept. 13, Osborne told reporters, "At the preliminary
hearing, the primary witness against Riley, the individual who
was shot, indicated that Riley was wearing a polo shirt with
three buttons and a hat. Riley was wearing a T-shirt, entirely a
different color, and did not have a hat on. Another witness ...
could not identify Riley as the shooter."

Lacey told SI, "I didn't see Osborne at the preliminary hearing.
We had two witnesses say, 'Riley Washington shot Jermaine Cole.
I saw the gun. I saw him do it.'"

Why has Osborne involved himself so deeply in the Washington
affair? "Because I'm going to have to make a call on Riley, and
I can't wait until the case goes to trial in February," he says.
"If I keep him out, and it turns out he's innocent, he will have
lost a whole year. On the other hand, if I let him play, and
later he's found guilty, that wouldn't be good either. What was
I supposed to do?"

Tyrone Williams, a senior cornerback, was charged in March 1994
with two felonies--unlawful discharge of a firearm and use of a
weapon to commit a felony--in connection with a Jan. 30, 1994,
shooting. Police say that Williams fired two shots into a car
occupied by former New York Jet safety Kevin Porter, who was in
town visiting friends. Porter was not hit. After the shooting,
but before Williams was charged, then-Nebraska assistant Kevin
Steele was given Williams's .22 caliber revolver. Then Steele
and Osborne locked the gun in a cabinet.

"When the chief of police and I learned that a gun wanted in
connection with a felony shooting was in Osborne's possession
when it should have been immediately turned over to the police,
then you have evidence that is being withheld," Lacey says.

When his actions came to light, Osborne said, "Frankly, if
anybody had asked, we would have given it to them sooner. No
charges had been filed, so we didn't think anybody was anxious
about it." Osborne has said all along that he notified campus

police about the gun. Last week Osborne conceded in an interview
with SI that prosecutors were probably looking for the gun at
the time he filed it away. "The weapon was missing when we asked
[Williams] to get it. If we hadn't made him give us the gun, the
police might never have gotten it."
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No responsible adult would hold onto a gun owned by a college player? If you have no reason to be suspicious of foul play then why not? It's not likely that firearms are allowed in dorms for obvious reasons. I personally once held onto several guns for someone who happened to be moving and wanted them kept safe. In all of the articles I've ever read on this I've never once seen a reason given for why Williams asked Steele to hold onto the gun for him. We simply don't know what reason he gave, although in hindsight his motive is pretty clear.

If campus police did know the whereabouts of the gun then how were Osborne and Steele in the wrong for holding the weapon?

 
krc1995 said:
But the others got spanked. We got trophies. 
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TO played the game better  :dunno

And I think you’re forgetting about all the heat he took for a few of those situations. 
 

I’m not saying he was the saint people thought he was. Holding a gun….basically interfering with police investigations until he couldn’t any longer. IMO that doesn’t make him worse than the people/programs who got caught and punished. He just knew how far he could push it.

Some of y’all sound like the unbearable CU fans of the 90s. It was a different, wilder time in CFB. Don’t let the hypocrisy of TOs public persona taint the best era of Husker football. At the time it really didn’t seem all that bad and I think that’s how it should be looked at. Maybe that’s selfish and self serving but there’s nothing we can do about it now except tarnish our greatest era. I’d give my left one to do it all again.

 
JJ Husker said:
This is a bad take imo.

All programs were held to a different standard in the 90s. It wasn’t just Nebraska with these problems. We just happened to be successful in that time period. Probably best to not use 2010s and 2020s standards to judge the 90s in hindsight. Seems revisionist.
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I'm using both current standards and the standards of the time. 

TO's meddling with the law, recruiting troubled kids with the narrative of being an off-the-field mentor and savior but the practicality of using them to win, and lenient punishments/excuses for serious offenses aren't only a black stain from a modern lens - they were a violation of cultural standards of the time as well; hence the infamous SI article and plenty others:

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/sep/20/trouble-at-the-top-nebraskas-tom-osborne-has-seen/

Trouble At The Top Nebraska’s Tom Osborne Has Seen School’s Shiny Image Tarnished

 

Sat., Sept. 20, 1997

Tom Osborne might have repaired Nebraska’s damaged image in two years since Lincoln became the crime capital of college football, but the thin line between sainthood and Satan, between right and wrong, can be breached in the matter of one weak moment.

Osborne, who coaches football like a traveling preacher, has not strayed from this message through the most trying times. His moral compass always points toward spirituality even as society’s ever-encroaching corruption circles Lincoln.

...

 

Phillips’ was perhaps the worst of several transgressions exposed after Osborne’s first national championship, after the sad-sack, second-place coach finally reached the pinnacle of college football.

But it was Christian Peter, an outstanding, 6-foot-2, 290-pound defensive tackle from New Jersey who further sullied the program’s image.

Peter was arrested five times from 1991 through ‘93 for exposing himself to a female student, urinating in public and failing to comply with a police officer’s orders, among other indiscretions. Despite the problems, Osborne played Peter because the tackle met his requirements after each incident.

He has remained loyal to Peter, critics say to a fault. “It seems he has blinders on when it comes to the players, even now,” said one who refused to be identified.

Osborne continued to stand by Peter even after two women, including a former Miss Nebraska, filed sexual assault and harassment charges against the player. Peter, signed by the New York Giants this year, allegedly groped the pageant winner in a downtown Lincoln bar. He pleaded guilty to third-degree assault. In a session for his athletes, Osborne lectured football players with ecclesiastic zeal.
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https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-11-09-sp-973-story.html

Nebraska Ought to Be Ashamed
 

NOV. 9, 1995 12 AM PT

Nebraska Coach Tom Osborne has reinstated his football player, Lawrence Phillips, to full status as his team’s star running back.

And the sky is blue and grass is green and a pie is round and the Pope is Catholic. And water’s wet, blood is red and the sun rises in the East.

He runs the 40 in 4.3, doesn’t he? What else do you need to know?

Oh, he burst into an apartment, not his own, on the night of Sept. 10, found his former girlfriend, Kate McEwen, there, pushed her into a bathroom, knocked her down and dragged her down three flights of stairs by her hair.

But, hey! Boys will be boys! Right?

“I wouldn’t call it a beating,” Coach Osborne was quoted as protesting in the Lincoln papers that week.

Oh? What would you call it, coach? A sock hop? A new dance, maybe?

At first, Osborne announced he had kicked the fellow off the team.

A lot of us who have been through this before sat back and waited.

It wasn’t a long wait. The ink was hardly dry on the coach’s first pronouncement before a second was forthcoming. Now, Phillips would not be suspended permanently, he would be “suspended indefinitely.”'

 

...

 

Just once you wish the coach would say: “Look! I had to fight 50 other colleges to recruit this guy. I’m trying to win the national championship here. I’ll probably be going to the Fiesta Bowl, where I’ll have to face a team that probably has a backfield full of Lawrence Phillipses. You’re going to ask me to sit down three or four touchdowns and 200 yards?! Get real!”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1995/09/13/nebraska-tarnished-by-trouble/f8c79be9-280a-496e-a172-3821bf941b84/

NEBRASKA TARNISHED BY TROUBLE

 

September 13, 1995
 

...But now, having finally beaten the Hurricanes, the Cornhuskers find themselves joining them in the public corner of shame. While Miami -- now under NCAA investigation -- flaunted its outlaw image, Nebraska had gained a sort of dignity in defeat for its diligent, if ultimately unsuccessful, approach. Now Nebraska's list of transgressions has grown too long to ignore.

 

...

 

"We've been portrayed, I guess, as Miami, or whatever," Osborne said. "I don't personally see it quite that bad. I think we have great character level. You have to understand, we have 150 players; there will be from three to five incidents every year, certainly, simply because you have that number of young men."

Said Athletic Director Bill Byrne: "We have had a few unfortunate incidents, and for that we're very, very remorseful. And we're going to do our best to make sure these types of things don't happen again. . . . It reflects on the whole state and it reflects on our university, and we don't want to have that type of perception."

It might be too late.

"I think it's, like, downing" the school's reputation, said Danny Kreis, a sophomore at the school. "It kind of looks down on us, that it's the kind of people we are."
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Lorewarn said:
I'm using both current standards and the standards of the time. 

TO's meddling with the law, recruiting troubled kids with the narrative of being an off-the-field mentor and savior but the practicality of using them to win, and lenient punishments/excuses for serious offenses aren't only a black stain from a modern lens - they were a violation of cultural standards of the time as well; hence the infamous SI article and plenty others:

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/sep/20/trouble-at-the-top-nebraskas-tom-osborne-has-seen/

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-11-09-sp-973-story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1995/09/13/nebraska-tarnished-by-trouble/f8c79be9-280a-496e-a172-3821bf941b84/
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Okay. You do you. But I have to ask, what’s the purpose almost 30 years later?

 
And I’m not going to reqoute you @Lorewarn for length, but what young men did TO actually help?  
 

Going back to MJ, had TO dealt with the poor behaviors maybe MJ’s kids would not be living in hell right now. 

 
JJ Husker said:
TO played the game better  :dunno

And I think you’re forgetting about all the heat he took for a few of those situations. 
 

I’m not saying he was the saint people thought he was. Holding a gun….basically interfering with police investigations until he couldn’t any longer. IMO that doesn’t make him worse than the people/programs who got caught and punished. He just knew how far he could push it.

Some of y’all sound like the unbearable CU fans of the 90s. It was a different, wilder time in CFB. Don’t let the hypocrisy of TOs public persona taint the best era of Husker football. At the time it really didn’t seem all that bad and I think that’s how it should be looked at. Maybe that’s selfish and self serving but there’s nothing we can do about it now except tarnish our greatest era. I’d give my left one to do it all again.
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Reading his responses to specific incidents is sickening. -LP didn’t really beat Kate M, but he did hurt her some (Didn’t he drag her down three flights of stairs by her hair and beat her head on the mailboxes?).

He’s also not really a danger to society, but has some issues with explosiveness every 5 months or so. -who fricken says this?  
 

And I personally knew Natalie (Christian Peter) strong young lady right there- to not give in to TO’s influence-although what punishment was served. 
 

and again back to MJ- do you think he  really scaled the outside of his girlfriends apartment to get notes for class? And as in several, or many, incidences to shortly follow, the victim and witness refused to press charges.  I’m sure they were leaned on. 
 

And I’m not sure I’ve ever read these articles with all the incidences chronicled and detailed. I was a college student and was probably at a party somewhere.  But I’m disgusted now and it does change the way I view our program’s history. 
 

 
The problem with the ‘he believed in 2nd chances’ and ‘it was a different time’ is that it disregards the trauma to the victims.

 
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