RebKell's Junkie Boards

[calbearman76]

It has been nearly two weeks since the "incident" and while we may never know all the facts a fairly complete picture has started to appear.

The first summer session was roughly three weeks in. Senior Battle and Freshmen Bethel were playing in a pickup game at the rec center. There was a bit of a kerfuffle underneath the basket during the game. As a result Battle shoves Bethel and Bethel falls down. Bethel then gets up and lands a punch that breaks a bone in Battle's face.

Bethel immediately gets kicked out of school. A police investigation is conducted and a report is presumably competed. At this point Battle is suspended for a month and issues an apology for her role. No charges are filed against Bethel.

So what should be made of this? These things play out every day across the country. One player shoves another. The other player reacts and unfortunately someone gets hurt. In a college game both players would probably get technicals, the puncher would be thrown out and get suspended for a few games. But when the people are of different sexes we have a scandal.

Bethel did a very stupid thing by punching another player. But perhaps the first stupid thing he did is playing in a pickup game with a girl. An 18 year old away from home gets shoved to the ground - by a girl. He is embarrassed and reacts inappropriately. He loses his scholarship and will either have to not play football this season or go to a lower division school. Hopefully he will work on his studies and learn from this, but history suggests this won't be his reaction. It seems he is good enough that he will become a Division 1 football player again, but it is unlikely that he would become a pro.

As for Battle she also did some stupid things, and she is a senior. Shoving another player isn't too smart, particularly in a pickup game. And once again, playing with boys also proved to be stupid. She winds up with a one month suspension and a broken face. Both punishments seem overly severe and based on sex stereotypes. I doubt we will ever get away from these stereotypes, even as people push for more of a sex-blind society, particularly in non-sexual situations.

There is probably something in Title IX that would not allow a prohibition on intersex pickup games, but I would highly discourage them for any college athletes.

[GEF34]

[ArtBest23]

[cthskzfn]

"No real man ever hits a woman".

Lol. A still-acceptable bias in our patriarchal society.

From the sketchy details we have, it does seem as if the male escalated things from a shove to a punch.

Seems similar to Griner's reaction a few years ago vs. Barnhouse(?). Griner wasn't shoved to the floor in that scenario, but was defended by many.

When Holdsclaw shot her gf, all sorts of psych understanding came into play in order to get an understanding of the poor woman's motivation.

Here, though, the general consensus seems to be "its just another violent male who needs to be exorcised" from the school, if not society altogether. No need to explore possible mitigating circumstances. Book him, Dano.

For all I know, the guy could be a total scumbag.

Battle, too, for that matter.

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Silly, stupid white people might be waking up.

[Ex-Ref]

What would the outcome of this have been if "AB" had be "Arthur Bond" instead of Ashley Battle?

Bond and Bethel were playing pick up basketball and Bethel punched Bond in the face breaking some bones to the extent that Bond needed surgery.

Would Bethel have been tossed from TTU?

Would it have mattered if Bond had been smaller in size than Bethel? What if Bond wasn't a college athlete, just someone that had played in high school, maybe even a bench warmer? (I don't know the differences in size between Battle and Bethel, but I don't think that I'm going too far out on a limb to say that there had to be a fairly large difference in strength, especially upper body strength.)

I don't know the answers to these questions. I haven't figured out if it matters or not. There's a part of me that says if you are bigger and stronger, you don't go around hitting people that are smaller and less strong.

But then do you penalize someone more just because they are bigger and stronger? Is it fair to place a larger burden on them to control their emotions just because they are bigger and stronger?

I really think that there were a lot of things in play here. Length of time at the school (goodwill). Avoiding a potential escalation of his bad behavior (let's say if he is allowed to stay in school, punches someone else - a teammate this time - think of the criticism and lawsuit then!!!). Gender.

At this time, TTU has very little financial investment in him (compared to Battle - unless recruiting a football player is more expensive than three years of scholarship, travel, training, medical care, practice gear/clothing, etc.) Maybe they just felt it was time to cut their losses and get out before something else happens.

FWIW, I was playing pickup basketball with guys that were 10 years older than me when I was in high school back in the '70's. There were never any problems.

[calbearman76]

[ArtBest23]

[calbearman76]

I stand corrected. My quick check showed him as 3* but I see that ESPN has him higher. The height came from the Texas Tech website, but an inch here or there is the norm for recruits.

[ArtBest23]

By the way, does anyone know how the transfer rules work in a situation like this where:
1) the player has only attended pre-freshman year summer school courses, and
2) has been thrown off the team and had his scholarship revoked?

Does he need to sit out a year or can he play right away this fall at another Div I school?

Reportedly TT allowed him to finish the first-summer-session classes which he was taking at the time of the incident.

Even I would think there should be zero restrictions when a school has said "we don't want you here any more". Seems to me they relenquish any objection to where or when the player plays. I suppose there's always a risk some creative player could game the sytem by purposely getting expelled just to allow an unrestricted transfer, but that risk seems pretty minimal. But I don't know whether the rules specifically address this situation, or whether the pre-freshman year summer courses count as "enrollment" under the transfer rules.

[ClayK]

The step from shove to punch in a pickup game at a college is a big one. Maybe at certain parks and gyms, the shove is equal to the punch, but generally I don't think so.

So Battle is stupid to push someone down who's stronger, as that is provocation, and can lead to just what happened. No question there's blame on her ...

But jumping up and punching someone is escalation. Jumping up and pushing them back means cooler heads will have a chance to get involved and keep the two apart.

My guess, though, is that if Battle hadn't been female, Bethel would have been reprimanded, suspended perhaps and punished in some way. But because she was female, the hammer came down ...

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Oṃ T�re Tutt�re Ture Sv�h�

[ArtBest23]

[Carol Anne]

[ArtBest23]