Sometimes, Clark Francis is almost offensively stupid. He is reporting
tonight that Heat Packin' Zach Randolph has committed to Michigan State
University. He goes on to call him a "great kid" who was busted
for weapons charges earlier this year but, according to Clark, " it was more a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time around the
wrong people and using poor judgment."
Well the wrong place was at home, so nothing is safe - Zach stashed 20 guns at
the crib, if we remember correctly. He's resolving to put it behind him, in the
modern vernacular.
Clark goes on to point out that this "great kid" has spent time in
detention centers (read: teen jail) not once but twice, but "hopefully he's learned a tough lesson, but valuable lesson"
- standard b.s., in other words, in our excuse and market driven culture: as
long as this kid can play, he's fair game for exploitation by talent pimps and
hustlers.
Hmmmmm...let's get in the way-back machine...someone do that Wayne's World
time-travel thing...what
nasty thing did Clark say about Tamir Goodman, a solid student, devout,
never so much as gum under his seat in class? Why he implied that Tamir was
faking an injury at a summer camp: 'It is easy to sit out with an injury and rest on your reputation.
One player who is doing exactly that is Tamir Goodman. However, we never thought he was that good to begin with.''
So let's make sure we understand this correctly: go to jail a couple ofÂ
times,
commit a few felonies, and you're a good kid who made some bad decisions, but be
a devout Jew, love and honor God, faith and family, but hurt your knee and decide not to risk
further injury, and you're a fraud. Well there's fraud going on here but
the fraud in question has to do with how Francis deals with kids and their
character. We don't see him down at the jailhouse telling 5'6" felons that
they are "good kids" who showed poor judgment. The good kids who
commit felonies are always going to be over 6'5" in his world with good
hops and a nice J.
Please God spare us from this idiocy. Zach Randolph may be a great kid, but
he's been to jail twice before he's 19, so it's his job to prove he's a good
kid, not Clark's. So far the evidence is against him, and he's responsible for
that evidence.
Bob Gibbons weighed in on this and in so many words called Francis an idiot,
saying
he had spoken to Heat Packin' Zach at noon and Zach said he had made no decision.
Clark says stupid things on a semi-regular basis, but calling Randolph a good
kid and Goodman a faker is really out of line. He should apologize to Tamir, but
wisely, Goodman doesn't read any of this kind of crap anyway.