He choked big time. Choked a woman, that is. University of Florida cornerback Jacques Rickerson was involved in one of the ugliest sports-crime stories of the year this past week, accused of beating, choking, and suffocating his girlfriend at her apartment complex.Rickerson allegedly struck his girlfriend and choked her; then, when she screamed, he threw her down on a bed and put a pillow over her face. He also blocked the door when she tried to escape, and grabbed her phone when she tried to call police. Cops eventually arrived at the scene and hit Rickerson with charges of felony domestic battery by strangulation.
These stories of chick-battering by football players just get worse and worse, and, dare we say it, it might be time to start asking if both the NCAA and leagues like the NFL are complicit in the problem.
Granted, Gators coach (and good Bill Belichick buddy) Urban Meyer did the right thing this past week by removing Rickerson from the squad. The normally squeaky clean Meyer immediately bounced Rickerson, saying, "That is not what our team is about."
The question is, how long it will take for some other college to pick up a guy who had been a good player for an SEC powerhouse. The one constant in college domestic-violence cases is the second chance — if the guy can play well enough. If and when he reaches the NFL, the same guy could then get a third and fourth and fifth chance.
Watch any NFL game this week and see if you can count the number of players on both teams who've skated on a domestic-violence incident at least once. Larry Johnson of the Chiefs is actually going to be back in uniform this week after his fourth domestic-violence incident. A one-game suspension for your fourth domestic-violence case? After you got caught going all Pacman on your ex, spitting in her face in a bar?
The curious thing is that Dolphins linebacker Joey Porter recently chose to make an issue of the league's inconsistent discipline policy by wondering aloud why first-time drug offender Matt Jones is still playing after catching a coke charge. But Porter's comments were actually off-base. If anything, the NFL and the NCAA go after drug abusers harder than they do batterers. Multiple offenders on the domestic-violence score — guys like Michael Pittman — can stay in the league for years. And too many teams draft guys with domestic-violence histories and then give them second chances once they misbehave in the NFL; the Bills' Marshawn Lynch, last seen getting stifled by the Patriots defense this past Sunday in Foxboro, is a great example.
Anyway, we'll keep an eye out to see if Rickerson resurfaces. Until then, 70 points for this vile business.
Long John dumped?
Following up on this past week's John Daly story: as most of you know, the golfer was found passed out at a Hooters in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on October 26. He wasn't arrested, but instead was taken to a local police station to sleep it off.
The incident creates an interesting business dilemma, as Hooters has been a sponsor for Long John since 2005. Do they dump him, or do they keep him on, reasoning that most young Southern men who read about Daly getting drunk and passing out in a flower bed will think, "If I was a fat pro golfer, that's what I'd do in my spare time too!"? Daly publicly apologized to the wing-and-tit chain, but at press time, the company had not yet commented on the situation.
DUI complete me
Leigh Steinberg, the onetime super-agent who was the model for Cameron Crowe's Jerry Maguire, has been arrested for a third alcohol-related offense.
In a weird incident, Steinberg, 59, was busted by police in Newport Beach, California, after reports came in of a man "screaming and attempting to climb a hill" behind a car-repair shop.
Cops caught up to Steinberg and found him slurring his words and smelling strongly of the stuff. He was nabbed this past year for a DUI after he hit three cars and knocked over a fire hydrant with his Mercedes. In 1997 he was arrested for hitting a car and injuring the driver while drunk.
Steinberg, you might remember, was Drew Bledsoe's agent. They both mattered around here about 10 years ago. Give him 25 points, plus another 10 for one of Tom Cruise's more obnoxious roles.
When he's not googling "SEC you in jail" and "show me the drunk tank," Matt Taibbi writes for Rolling Stone. He can be reached at m_taibbi@yahoo.com.
