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Niners pick LaMike - Printable Version

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Niners pick LaMike - pincemob - 04-27-2012

Hopefully he won't strangle anyone. 

Well, Harbaugh himself was popped for DUI at Univ. of San Diego - Redrum - 04-27-2012

Maybe he feels a kindred spirit to a product of the Oregon program.

Re: Niners pick LaMike - Select Cardboarders Puke on themselves - unclechuck - 04-27-2012

So, absent any insight or informed commentary, both of you choose to flaunt your ignorance and petty chauvinism.

Redrum - it was Skov who got busted for drinking wasn't it; not James? And cracking on Harbaugh for a DUI in his San Diego days, while he was going through a contentious divorce, just makes you look small and ungracious. I'm really disappointed.

Norcalcard - your petty ignorance is just so stunning there's no place to actually begin a rebuttal. Are you really a Stanford grad or just a poser? Legacy; special admit?

I'd speculate that Harbaugh recalls the 403 yards rushing that James gained in Oregon's victories over Stanford in 2010 and 2011.

http://espn.go.com/ncf/boxscore?gameId=302752483
http://espn.go.com/ncf/recap?gameId=313160024

Or the 125 in 18 carries he got in Stanfords's victory in 2009:

http://espn.go.com/ncf/boxscore?gameId=293110024

Or maybe just his toughness and durability in rushing for over 3400 yards in the last two years while missing multiple games for a dislocated elbow (2011).

If nothing else he'll be an instant upgrade in their punt and kick return games.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/04/27/SPK01OA9NV.DTL


Uncle Chuck... - Redrum - 04-28-2012

This is a sports bulletin board,  not Foreign Affairs magazine or a Supreme Court opinion.  Go read those if you want probity and arguments that hold together with iron logic.    If a person can't have a little fun here, what's the point?    I am completely agnostic on the school origins of NFL players...mainly because I hardly give a flip about the NFL.  I want Stanford guys to do well but only because they went to Stanford.  Everyone else gets a reset to zero...well, except for Scott Fujita,  but that's another story. 
I am also mainly agnostic on Harbaugh's DUI.  He did it.  It was wrong.  He paid.  As long as it doesn't repeat, end of story.
The only NFL team I pay any attention to is the Niners...and that mainly because of Harbaugh and that's because I'm a of extremely large proportions fan of what he did for us.  If LaMichael is now a Niner,  godspeed to him. 

Alles klar Herr Kommissar?

Re: Niners pick LaMike - pincemob - 04-28-2012

I see a difference between those DUIs and violence against women.  Grabbing a woman by the neck and throwing her against your car because she broke your necklace?  Whatever.  Maybe there was "more to the story".  But hey, you go ahead and cheer for him because he's fast and a better returner than Kyle Williams.  People can decide for themselves. 

Re: Niners pick LaMike - unclechuck - 04-28-2012

Tell you what, here are some specifics. I won't bring it up or comment on it again.

A Bruce Feldman article from ESPN that provides a temperate accounting in lieu of rumor or speculation. I've copied and pasted it below as it's for insiders only. At the time it was widely available through multiple sources.

And here's a link to the sentencing memorandum that illuminates a number of other misconceptions and explains why under Oregon state law immediate arrest is required if domestic abuse is even suspected....

http://www.scribd.com/theoregonian/d/28271575-LaMichael-James-Sentencing-Memorandum

Here's the Feldman link:
http://insider.espn.go.com/ncf/blog?name=feldman_bruce&id=5448507


Bruce Feldman Blog
The path back for LaMichael James
August, 9, 2010
08/09/10
7:51
AM ET
By Bruce Feldman

The 2009 season saw LaMichael James become a star almost literally overnight. He ran for 1,546 yards -- a Pac-10 freshman record -- and helped rescue the Oregon offense that looked dismal in an opening night loss at Boise State. A few months after the season ended though, the 5-foot-9, 185-pound back from Texas learned just how quickly that world can be turned upside down.

In February, James was arrested on domestic violence charges and put in jail after an altercation with his ex-girlfriend. The incident followed a host of embarrassing winter off-field news for Oregon that began almost a month earlier with QB Jeremiah Masoli (now at Ole Miss) accused in connection with a theft at a frat-house party.

Many teams' names are dragged through the muck by offseason police-blotter news, but you rarely see one team -- especially one coming off a Rose Bowl appearance -- have its two highest-profile players in the news in this way.

Of all the news, the story involving James probably stunned the Oregon football community more than any other. James had been raised by women, in a home with his grandmother, mother and big sister (12 years his senior). Coaches rave about his character. He's an honor student. His teachers often tell Ducks coaches what a great young man he is. Teammates say James might be the last guy on the team they could have imagined being jailed for something like this.

His ex-girlfriend had said he grabbed her neck during an argument and pushed her to the ground. The 20-year-old James pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges of menacing, strangulation and assault.

According to sources, James had a female friend from his hometown of Texarkana, Texas, visiting him. His ex-girlfriend at the time came by his home after James had left and knocked on his door to tell the other friend to come outside. The woman from Texas wouldn't let the ex-girlfriend in. The situation was escalating. The friend from Texas called James on his cell phone saying his ex was at his front door and she was very upset. "You need to come back," the friend told James. He did.

According to the police report, shortly after James arrived home, a struggle ensued as the ex-girlfriend got into his car and took his keys out of the ignition.

James' older sister, Tasha, who had developed a relationship with James' ex-girlfriend over the previous months, had actually spoken to both her brother and his ex-girlfriend at the time the incident took place and was bewildered when she learned that this was what had led to her brother being sent to jail.

"I'm thinking he should have never come back. He should've called the police and told them someone's at his apartment acting crazy. If he had done that, this situation never would've escalated. They had been broken up way before this had happened. I think what triggered everything was [that] he was still trying to befriend her because he knew how emotional she was," his sister said.

"Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he should've cut it clean, instead of still trying to be friends because he didn't want to hurt her. So when she went to his house, she first texted me and said '[Blank] is here.' [Blank] is a friend of LaMichael's from Texarkana. I said, 'How do you know she's there?'

"She said, 'I know she's there. I saw her. I've seen her here before.' Then she was laughing: 'I can't believe she's here, hahaha.'

"I called her. She said, 'LaMichael said he's going to call the police on me.' I said, 'You're at his house. It's probably best that you leave because I don't want you to get in trouble.'

"She then told me, 'The police officer is here.' I'm thinking that when she called me back that everything was OK and she was going home. When she talked to me, she had never mentioned anything about him hitting her or doing anything physical. She just said she was mad and she wanted to know why [blank] was there. I was consoling her the whole night and the next day. Then all of a sudden, I get a call two days later saying, 'LaMichael's in jail.'

"I was like, 'For what?' I had no clue. If he did this on a Monday, why did she wait 'til late Tuesday night?"

James spent three nights in jail surrounded by about 25 other men behind bars, he said.

"It's the worst thing, by far, that I've ever had to go through in my life, including the deaths of people close to me," he said. "I'm there thinking, 'I'm embarrassed for my family. I'm embarrassed for my team. I'm embarrassed for my school, where I'm from [in Texas], the community here.' Everyone knows me here. I'm held to higher standards. I'm supposed to be bigger than that. It really hurt because I couldn't say anything. I couldn't defend myself. I just walked around and was viewed as a person that I'm really not."

James said of his jail time that he "was on lockdown 24 hours a day," but did say the other men behind bars were very respectful to him. Perhaps the toughest part of dealing with the ordeal was calling his family back in Texas.

"I had to call my sister from jail," he said. "She really didn't understand. I'm the only guy in my family and they are very, very protective of me. This was my ex-girlfriend. They knew her. They were talking to her the same day. They didn't understand."

James' sister described the relationship as "fragile" and remembered a conversation that struck her as odd in retrospect.

"She first visited us a year ago. [LaMichael] brought her home. She seemed like a sweet person. After they had gotten back home, a week or two later, they'd had an argument. [LaMichael] said she was too possessive. She wanted him to spend more time with her, and he wasn't able to give up more time with his class schedule and with football. She called me up. She was screaming. She was hysterical about him moving his things out of her house. She said, 'He's leaving me! I don't want him to leave. Please stop him.' I thought it was strange. They had been going out for [just a few months] and she was acting like this. I just thought, 'Maybe she's just putting on.' I didn't know."

Part II following


Re: Feldman Article; part II - unclechuck - 04-28-2012


One month after the incident, four of the five charges James initially faced were dropped. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor harassment charge and was sentenced to 10 days in jail and 24 months of probation. He reported to jail but was quickly released and put on electronic surveillance for the duration of his sentence. Oregon coach Chip Kelly suspended him for the Ducks' season opener. James wrote a letter of apology to his former girlfriend. He also said he felt horrible about the additional wave of negative attention the Oregon program has received.

"It makes the program look bad," James said. "You have a coach who is taking hits for us, for our behavior. That really hurts. I love Coach Kelly. He's been there for me. Even during my whole deal, he was always there. He really does stress discipline. He's not going to pick an individual over [the] team. I didn't want to be seen in a negative light. If LaMichael James is getting in trouble, then everybody gets in trouble.

"This will probably affect me for the rest of my life. But it's up to me to choose if it's going to be for good or for bad. I mean, no one wants to see their name on the ESPN ticker or in the paper for that. I can't defend myself whatsoever. But it's really up to me to strive for the best in my situation. Is LaMichael James going to quit, or is he going to keep fighting? I'm going to keep fighting. I'm not going to give up because someone's to judge me or thinks that LaMichael James did this or that. I'm going to go out and be the better person."

James added that he thought the way the incident was portrayed by the media was irresponsible.

"The media took it and ran with it," he said. "They could've ran a relay with it. They took it too far. They put my apartment on the news. They just made it so much worse. But I know that the only thing bigger than a rising star is a falling star. It's their job. You just gotta live with it."

James missed nearly a month of school while the case was running its course. One of the best things he took from the situation was seeing the bond he had developed with his professors, who supported him by coming to him to help him finish his classes. James, a sports business major, said he still maintained a 3.0 GPA. One of his goals for 2010 is to earn Academic All-American status.

"I really do take my grades very seriously," he said. "That's really who I am. I want to be an Academic All-American. That's important to me. I am going to leave here with a degree. I know that I'm not very big and I know the NFL stands for 'Not For Long.'"

As chaotic as the past six months have been, he is convinced he has grown because of what he has been through. He said the whole situation with his ex totally caught him off guard. "I have the utmost respect for that person. I'm not totally against that person. I'm not going to hold grudges. I'm over the situation.

"It is going to make me a better person."

Re: Niners pick LaMike - CowboyIndian - 04-28-2012

Well...that's a nice, self-serving piece and maybe you've become inured to folks referring to themselves by their full names.  To each his own. The NFL is not well known for character building....and neither is UofO...so I guess we'll see.

So much for reset to zero - Redrum - 04-28-2012

The man managed to hit Redrum's hot button, too, Cowboy.  Redrum simply cannot stand it when people refer to themselves as if they were some third person standing over there.    In this one exceptional case Redrum is going to cut LaMichael James some slack for talking about what LaMichael James did and how much LaMichael James grew because of it.  Redrum hopes LaMichael James appreciates this because if Redrum ever hears or reads  anything about LaMichael James being quoted on himself and how "LaMichael  James didn't come to the 49ers to be a backup running back"....OR... "LaMichael has fully bought into the Harbaugh system" ...OR... "LaMichael James just doesn't fumble the ball... but against the Falcons he did"...well,  all bets are off and Redrum doesn't care how the Justice for LaMichael James League reacts.

Re: Niners pick LaMike - OutsiderFan - 04-28-2012

It will be great to be able to root for LaMichael James on the football field for once now that he will be donning crimson and gold.  The evidence strongly suggests James is a smart and responsible guy who values his education and wants to be as good as he can be on and off the field. 

James is no Kiko Alonso or Cliff Harris.



Re: Niners pick LaMike - pincemob - 04-28-2012

Interview with assailant + his sister without hearing anything from victim or her family  = temperate accounting?   

  Many Oregon alums I know are outraged with their outlaw program.  Some think Kelly is fixing it.  Others think he is part of the problem, citing the ESPN reporting recently of rampant drug usage.    But again, to each their own.  Sounds like he has some good qualities besides speed and killing Stanford. 

Moving on....

Re: Niners pick LaMike - unclechuck - 04-30-2012

(04-30-2012, 08:26 AM)garvin link Wrote:I don't really have an opinion on this case or LaMichael James. But I do agree that a piece on a criminal case that quotes only the defendant and his sister is not exactly a model of good journalism.

That's why the Sentencing Memorandum was included as corroborative of the specifics of the incident. That document clearly evolved with the input of all parties.

While the links I provided may not hold up to rigorous journalistic standards, they were provided as a counter point to negative comments of questionable legitimacy and arguable wit.

So while the journalistic point as a stand alone comment - as Glenn clearly states- is inarguable, its relevance is modest and off topic.