Binghamton University hoopster Malik Alvin broke new sports-crime ground recently, stealing a 36-pack of extra-large condoms and assaulting a senior citizen in the process. |
CSI: Binghamton
New can’t-miss TV show concept: find some aging washed-out actor (Danny Bonaduce? Tim Matheson?) and turn him into a sneering, Armani-clad, cool-guy chief of the Binghamton, New York, municipal crime-scene investigators’ office. And then have him exclusively investigate crimes committed by members of the Binghamton University Bearcats basketball team. It’d get great ratings and then you could spin all 300 episodes off to the A&E channel for endless syndication.
The Bearcats, as you may recall, were once the home of New York Post back-page mega-villain Miladin Kovacevic, a Serbian hoopster who got in some trouble in May for beating the shit out of one Bryan Steinhauer in a bar. Steinhauer suffered a fractured skull, a broken jaw, and two broken eye sockets, and had to be put in a medically induced coma — nice work for a basketball player who apparently couldn’t hit the side of an airplane hangar with an actual basketball.
Kovacevic initially left the country and escaped prosecution in his homeland. The Serbian consul in New York was arrested for helping Kovacevic out of the country (he was accused of forging papers for the basketball player) but has since been freed; Kovacevic, meanwhile, has been arrested in Serbia but has yet to be extradited to the US. Senators Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer will likely continue to stump loudly for said extradition, or at least until such time as the prosecution of hulking Serbian goons who put American college kids into comas becomes unpopular in the polls.
All of that, however, is academic, as Binghamton now has a second national scandal on its hands. This past week, Bearcats coach Kevin Broadus (no relation to Calvin, rap fans) was distressed to learn that 20-year-old junior guard Malik Alvin had been busted for shoplifting a 36-pack of Trojan Magnum condoms. Not only that, but as he made his getaway, Alvin knocked over a 66-year-old woman — causing a concussion. He’s been charged with shoplifting and assault.
The Binghamton program had to watch quietly as sports publications across the country laughed out loud at the incident, with Sports Illustrated even going so far as to put it in its “Dumb Arrest of the Day” section — alongside a joke which suggested that Alvin had cooked up the scheme to advertise the fact that he has a Magnum-size dong. “Good PR,” the magazine quipped.
Our research indicates that Alvin is the first major college or pro athlete to be caught stealing condoms. He is certainly the first major athlete to assault an old lady in the process of stealing condoms. Gotta give him at least 21 points on this one.
Bad Bruin
Speaking of Serbian basketball forwards with criminal histories . . .
This past week one Nikola Dragovic of UCLA, a junior forward for the fourth-ranked Bruins, was busted for a domestic-violence incident. It seems he broke up with his “co-habitant,” and when he went to go pick up his stuff at her place, she already had thrown the bulk of it outside. Dragovic went nuts and threw her to the floor. Cops arrived. Charges were filed. Just another happy story in the happy world of college athletics!
