MSU opened preseason camp this past Monday, and for all the talk that could have been made regarding who will end up as starting quarterback or who replaces Javon Ringer, the most talked about personnel change was the reinstatement of runningback Glenn Winston.
Winston received an early release from his jailing for apparently keeping his nose clean and accumulating time off for good behavior. I was surprised by Mark Dantonio’s decision to allow him to rejoin the team participate in preseason camp, as I was expecting Winston to be subjected to a period of coach/team imposed punishment. That may still be the case as I have no inside information regarding the discussions between Winston and Dantonio, but no mention has been made of him having to perform conditioning drills outside those performed by all the members of the team. To be honest, I am not completely comfortable with this decision.
As one who has had total confidence in Dantonio’s direction of the program since his hiring, I just hope that this situation doesn’t become a blemish on his career and what he has accomplished and yet to accomplish. Dantonio has openly talked about his Christian values and how he is more than just a football coach but an example to his players about what it entails to be a man. He is definitely expressing the Christian tenet of forgiveness, and his willingness to offer a young man a second chance. What concerns me is that Glenn Winston does not become Dantonio’s Lawrence Phillips.
For those of you unfamiliar with Lawrence Phillips, he was a gifted athlete who played football at Nebraska for legendary Cornhusker coach, Tom Osborne, and had a similar incident to that of Winston. In 1995 Phillips assaulted and caused bodily harm to his then girlfriend, Kate McEwen, after returning home from the season opener against Michigan State. Besides punching and choking her, he dragged her down a flight of stairs before law enforcement was able to intervene. Osborne took the unpopular stance of suspending Phillips instead of kicking him off the team. Believing that it would be better to handle this incident internally and monitor Phillips every move. For whatever reason, McEwen did not press charges, and Osborne got his way. Osborne eventually reinstated Phillips before the end of the 1995 season, and after the 1996 Fiesta Bowl, Phillips would declare for the NFL draft. Many are of the belief that Osborne’s decision was two fold. He didn’t want to lose his star running back, and secondly he thought by giving Phillips a second chance he would realize the break he was receiving and turn his life around. To make a long story longer, it was a failed experiment. Once Phillips was out from under Osborne’s thumb his troubled ways resurfaced on multiple occasions that resulted in him being sentenced in 2008 to ten years in a California prison for seven counts of assault with a deadly weapon.
I’m not saying Winston hasn’t learned his lesson, or that he did not pay his debt to society, because he was prosecuted and sentenced to jail for 180 days. What I am concerned about is how this young man will respond to opportunity he has been granted, now and after his career at MSU is over. My prayer is that Dantonio and the staff will be a strong enough influence on this young man to mold him into something more than a football player. I can’t imagine Dantonio will allow another indiscretion in his behavior.
Good luck Glenn.
If Burrell was indeed involved in this incident then he obviously didn’t take Dantonio seriously, as he apparently was already on a short leash for a previous indiscretion that occurred during workouts last summer. Booting him off the team was the proper decision if a player displays repeated character issues and poor judgment.
I believe in the adage that you are known by the company you keep. If Winston was hanging with Burrell, who already had character issues, then I would be concerned about future incidents from all players who returned to the party that night.
Again, I am not against giving a second chance, Lord knows I have had my fair share, I just hope Winston learns from it because Burrell obviously didn’t.
While not knowing what type of “in-house” punishment Winston is receiving or what type of “work” he has to do to get back on the field, I am satisfied with Mark Dantonio’s decision for one reason: I feel that if the decision to bring Winston back had ANY chance of destroying the program Dantonio has brought back from the depths, he simply would not have done it. The expectations that are SELF-PLACED by Dantonio in terms of January bowls and Big Ten titles would be ruined by further off-the-field issues by his players. It seems that Dantonio doesn’t see a high risk of recurrence with Winston
“No one player is more important than his team.” While this statement seems to only apply to athletically-average high school kids that play sports for fun (if you are being honest with yourself), I feel that this is the image that Dantonio presents as fact through the way he carries himself as a no-nonsense man of character and integrity. I’m not worried about Winston, because of Mark Dantonio and the MSU program he has changed from a bunch of rocks and pebbles to a solid boulder, hopefully on its way to becoming a mountain on the national stage.
“The punishment has FAR outweighed the crime already, and it would be prudent for you to trust Mark Dantonio, Mark Hollis, and our entire coaching staff on this decision, and treat Glenn Winston with the respect he deserves.”
I’d disagree that the punishment outweighed the crime. Winston managed to cause some significant damage to two different people. Just speaking if I was the judge, I’d say that about right, especially because of the circumstances of the fight (if you haven’t followed, White gets in fight with the unlamentedly no longer a Spartan Andrew Conboy, White starts up a posse, which includes Winston, and they go over and end up damaging two people who aren’t Conboy) which were less defensible than just getting in a fight at a party.
My first thought was that Winston should sit out this year, but I think I’m moderating on that because he did already lose some games last year.
Another point that is important is in the Joe Rexrode story:
http://www.greenandwhite.com/article/20090811/GW01/908110325&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL
It mentions that one player involved (not named, but you’d have to assume it was Charles Burrell*) was booted from the team for being involved, even though he wasn’t charged because he’d previously gotten in trouble. That suggests to me that when Dantonio gives Winston a second chance, that’s just what it is and he won’t get a third chance.
* Burrell was the three star rated safety prospect from Detroit who disappeared from the roster around that time with no public explanation and hasn’t returned. He was picked up earlier
The point of my post was not about domestic assault or who Winston beat up. The point I was trying to make was that hopefully Winston will embrace the opportunity that Dantonio is providing and has learned his lesson. Any possible future indiscretions by Winston will be met with a great deal of second guessing and the opinion that Dantonio coddled him because of his athletic prowess and not because Winston will become a model citizen.
I have trusted Dantonio in all his decisions to date, but it is not Dantonio I am concerned with, it’s Winston.
Amen, Phil. Comparing Winston to some whack job who punched and choked his girlfriend and dragged her down some stairs is ridiculous. How exactly does that compare to jocks fighting at a party? And it was hockey players. Not like he’s pounding on the golf team (sorry golfers). I’m not sure where all this “sucker punching” is coming from, but isn’t that pretty much always what the guy who got the worst of it says? Seems like Winston’s worst crime is that he’s got a good punch. The punch lands a little differently and he’s probably got 30 days like White. Am I condoning what he did? Absolutely not. He was wrong and deserved to be punished. But he HAS been punished, and HAS served his time. And if that’s good enough for Dantonio, who is far closer to this incident than any of us, it’s certainly good enough for me. You can second guess all you want. There is no doubt in my mind that Dantonio feels strongly that Glenn is worth his decision to get back with the team, and I don’t mean worth it on the football field. Rest assured, Dantonio thinks Winston is worth it as a man, as a human being. Once again, that’s good enough for me.
I respectfully disagree with your opinion.
Glenn Winston was jailed for getting in to a fight with a hockey defenseman, not his girlfriend. Fighting a fully capable, athletic male that should be able to defend himself to some degree, and operating under the belief that he was ‘backing up his teammates’, is a FAR CRY from domestic abuse.
Just because the judge in this case decided Glenn’s punishment should be jail time, (whether or not it was justified is beside the point) does not place him in the same category as a domestic abuser, a murderer, a rapist, or any of a number of different offenders that happen to share the same space.
I am kind of tired of people talking about Glenn as if he hadn’t served his sentence, or paid enough of a price. Personally, I think that the fact that the judge went overboard and judged him TOO HARSHLY (by putting his name next to “jail time” in every article about him) has given him the stigma of being a bad apple. Admittedly, he made a mistake, but if he had been given a sentence that more acutely fit the crime, this news would have been in and out of the media in a day, some 180 days ago.
I consider him in the same unfortunate circumstance as someone who gets a ticket for urinating in public and ends up having to tell his neighbors that he’s on the sex offender list for the rest of his life, though to a lesser degree.
The punishment has FAR outweighed the crime already, and it would be prudent for you to trust Mark Dantonio, Mark Hollis, and our entire coaching staff on this decision, and treat Glenn Winston with the respect he deserves.
Off topic – I very much appreciate your blog, and your additional take on Spartan Athletics. Thank you for taking the time to do this for myself and the rest of the great Spartans who can’t get enough football-talk.
I was not comfortable with the situation either, especially with regard to the timing. Coming out of prison and rejoining the team right away was probably a matter of coincidence more than anything else, although we really don’t know what Winston’s status with the team is right now, except for the fact that he is reinstated and practicing. Dantonio has continued to say that Winston “has work to do” and that work hopefully involves regaining the trust of the coaching staff. The young man has paid his legal debt, and now that he has been released, I don’t think there is any doubt that responsibility and structure can only help this young man make his transition into normal life. At this point, I think Glenn Winston needs support, and hopefully football can provide him that.