Post by MizzouTiger on Feb 9, 2008 12:42:20 GMT -5
www.kansascity.com/sports/story/478993.html
Football recruit thrilled to get a second chance with Kansas
By J. BRADY McCOLLOUGH
The Kansas City Star
LAWRENCE | The junior college stands on a hill, in the middle of a cow pasture. Jocques Crawford drove up that hill in Cisco, Texas, in the summer of 2006 and wondered what he had gotten himself into.
At the time, spending two years in the small ranching community seemed a lot to ask of a kid from the city. But Crawford was far away from his hometown of Memphis, Tenn., and that was all that mattered. Crawford thought Memphis had turned its back on him. A star running back at Cordova High School, he had been charged with felony aggravated rape the summer before his senior season.
The charge didn’t stick, but the label did. Rapist. That’s what opposing fans would chant during football and basketball games. That’s what scared off all those big-time college coaches who pulled their offers. That’s what made him fall from Rivals.com’s No. 20 overall running back in the country to No. 45. The kid had baggage — not to mention, he failed to academically qualify — and he’d have to pack it up and head to Cisco.
Given all of that, Jocques Crawford (pronounced Jock-ez, but everyone calls him Jock) probably thought Wednesday would never come. He pulled out a pen and happily signed away the next two years of his life to Kansas. He’ll come to Lawrence this summer grateful for a second chance, knowing there will be people who will question whether he should even be allowed on campus.
“Of course,” Crawford said, “it’s going to always follow me. It happened three years ago, and it still comes up anytime someone says my name. Sometimes, I get stressed out about it and depressed about it. But I have to look at it. That motivates me to go prove people wrong and just follow through with my dreams and my goals.”
On the night of Aug. 1, 2005, Crawford’s dreams were wholly attainable and right in front of him. Then 17, Crawford was the most high-profile recruit in the city. Clemson, Ole Miss and Arkansas were lining up for his services, along with many others. It was that night that Crawford and his friends crossed paths with a 15-year-old girl whom he had never met. She would later claim that the boys forced her to perform oral sex on them.
She mentioned Crawford’s name, and on Aug. 16, Crawford was arrested and taken into juvenile custody. He would stay there for 23 days. According to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, Crawford’s mother and his lawyers pleaded down to a misdemeanor simple assault so that he could return to school and football. Crawford was sentenced to supervised probation.
Asked to explain why she allowed Crawford to plea down, Tennessee state prosecutor Terre Fratesi told the Commercial Appeal that the case was settled in the best interest of the victim and that she could not release details because juveniles were involved.
Crawford says that he was falsely accused. Raised by a single mother, Jennifer Sanders, he says he would never do what the girl said. He does admit some wrongdoing, though.
“I treat a woman how I want a guy to treat my mother,” Crawford said. “I may have done something morally wrong, but I didn’t do anything wrong as far as making a girl do anything to me. That’s just not my character.”
The Memphis City Schools suspended Crawford for more than half of his senior season. By the time he came back, all felt lost. No more all-star games, no more official visits, everything gone, just like that. His story was front-page material, fodder for radio talk shows and TV news. He was portrayed as just another athlete who had gotten a free ride in the judicial system.
Crawford didn’t know who his friends were anymore, but he did have one person in his corner: Texas Tech coach Mike Leach, who stuck with him despite his legal trouble. Crawford signed with the Red Raiders, but he didn’t qualify academically. Leach asked him to go to Cisco and get his academics straightened out.
So there was Crawford, riding up that hill in the middle of nowhere. He certainly wasn’t in Memphis anymore, and that was more than fine with him.
“I felt that I wasn’t treated fairly, and people looked at me as if I’d done something wrong,” Crawford said. “… Even when it was over, people still hung it over my head. I just felt that I had to get away from Memphis.”
Crawford, 6 feet 1 and 220 pounds, would excel as a player at Cisco, rushing for 1,935 yards and 19 touchdowns his sophomore year. He was chosen the national junior college offensive player of the year and shot up the recruiting rankings as the No. 16 overall juco talent.
“It’s so fitting he became national juco player of the year,” said John Dowtin, one of his coaches at Cordova and the program’s current head coach. “To show what a player he really was and get the attention that he didn’t get his senior year. He was clearly one of the two or three best players in the city.”
But Crawford’s on-field success was only part of the equation in Cisco. Off it, he showed his desire to prove himself by doing the team’s laundry and cleaning up the fieldhouse every day after class as part of a work-study program. Crawford bonded with his coach, John Parchman, spending time with him on the weekends feeding the cows at Parchman’s ranch.
As decision time approached for Crawford, Texas Tech didn’t seem right anymore. The Red Raiders had signed his younger brother, Aaron, to play running back the year before. And they barely ran the ball anyway. Crawford reopened his recruitment, and Kansas got wind of it.
When KU called Parchman and asked him about Crawford’s past, Parchman let them know that he wished he had 100 Jocques Crawfords.
“I’m telling you,” Parchman said, “there’s nothing there anyone in Kansas needs to be concerned about. I’d stake my reputation on it.”
Kansas did its homework on Crawford. KU athletic director Lew Perkins said the school commissioned a “thorough, in-depth, independent assessment” of Crawford’s legal history, which included a background check and discussions with parties involved in the case.
“We recruited Jocques because he is a good person and a good football player,” KU coach Mark Mangino said. “We know that, since the incident, Jocques has conducted himself in an exemplary manner and has done what he needed to do to put the incident behind him.”
A scholarship offer — a second chance — was granted by Kansas, and Crawford accepted. He’ll compete immediately for playing time this fall.
“I’m very appreciative of Kansas and the things they did to check into the real story,” Crawford said. “I had to go out and do something to show people that, hey, I’m not just a person who made a huge mistake in his life. I am somebody who’s going to be positive and do what it takes to make good things happen.”
Football recruit thrilled to get a second chance with Kansas
By J. BRADY McCOLLOUGH
The Kansas City Star
LAWRENCE | The junior college stands on a hill, in the middle of a cow pasture. Jocques Crawford drove up that hill in Cisco, Texas, in the summer of 2006 and wondered what he had gotten himself into.
At the time, spending two years in the small ranching community seemed a lot to ask of a kid from the city. But Crawford was far away from his hometown of Memphis, Tenn., and that was all that mattered. Crawford thought Memphis had turned its back on him. A star running back at Cordova High School, he had been charged with felony aggravated rape the summer before his senior season.
The charge didn’t stick, but the label did. Rapist. That’s what opposing fans would chant during football and basketball games. That’s what scared off all those big-time college coaches who pulled their offers. That’s what made him fall from Rivals.com’s No. 20 overall running back in the country to No. 45. The kid had baggage — not to mention, he failed to academically qualify — and he’d have to pack it up and head to Cisco.
Given all of that, Jocques Crawford (pronounced Jock-ez, but everyone calls him Jock) probably thought Wednesday would never come. He pulled out a pen and happily signed away the next two years of his life to Kansas. He’ll come to Lawrence this summer grateful for a second chance, knowing there will be people who will question whether he should even be allowed on campus.
“Of course,” Crawford said, “it’s going to always follow me. It happened three years ago, and it still comes up anytime someone says my name. Sometimes, I get stressed out about it and depressed about it. But I have to look at it. That motivates me to go prove people wrong and just follow through with my dreams and my goals.”
On the night of Aug. 1, 2005, Crawford’s dreams were wholly attainable and right in front of him. Then 17, Crawford was the most high-profile recruit in the city. Clemson, Ole Miss and Arkansas were lining up for his services, along with many others. It was that night that Crawford and his friends crossed paths with a 15-year-old girl whom he had never met. She would later claim that the boys forced her to perform oral sex on them.
She mentioned Crawford’s name, and on Aug. 16, Crawford was arrested and taken into juvenile custody. He would stay there for 23 days. According to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, Crawford’s mother and his lawyers pleaded down to a misdemeanor simple assault so that he could return to school and football. Crawford was sentenced to supervised probation.
Asked to explain why she allowed Crawford to plea down, Tennessee state prosecutor Terre Fratesi told the Commercial Appeal that the case was settled in the best interest of the victim and that she could not release details because juveniles were involved.
Crawford says that he was falsely accused. Raised by a single mother, Jennifer Sanders, he says he would never do what the girl said. He does admit some wrongdoing, though.
“I treat a woman how I want a guy to treat my mother,” Crawford said. “I may have done something morally wrong, but I didn’t do anything wrong as far as making a girl do anything to me. That’s just not my character.”
The Memphis City Schools suspended Crawford for more than half of his senior season. By the time he came back, all felt lost. No more all-star games, no more official visits, everything gone, just like that. His story was front-page material, fodder for radio talk shows and TV news. He was portrayed as just another athlete who had gotten a free ride in the judicial system.
Crawford didn’t know who his friends were anymore, but he did have one person in his corner: Texas Tech coach Mike Leach, who stuck with him despite his legal trouble. Crawford signed with the Red Raiders, but he didn’t qualify academically. Leach asked him to go to Cisco and get his academics straightened out.
So there was Crawford, riding up that hill in the middle of nowhere. He certainly wasn’t in Memphis anymore, and that was more than fine with him.
“I felt that I wasn’t treated fairly, and people looked at me as if I’d done something wrong,” Crawford said. “… Even when it was over, people still hung it over my head. I just felt that I had to get away from Memphis.”
Crawford, 6 feet 1 and 220 pounds, would excel as a player at Cisco, rushing for 1,935 yards and 19 touchdowns his sophomore year. He was chosen the national junior college offensive player of the year and shot up the recruiting rankings as the No. 16 overall juco talent.
“It’s so fitting he became national juco player of the year,” said John Dowtin, one of his coaches at Cordova and the program’s current head coach. “To show what a player he really was and get the attention that he didn’t get his senior year. He was clearly one of the two or three best players in the city.”
But Crawford’s on-field success was only part of the equation in Cisco. Off it, he showed his desire to prove himself by doing the team’s laundry and cleaning up the fieldhouse every day after class as part of a work-study program. Crawford bonded with his coach, John Parchman, spending time with him on the weekends feeding the cows at Parchman’s ranch.
As decision time approached for Crawford, Texas Tech didn’t seem right anymore. The Red Raiders had signed his younger brother, Aaron, to play running back the year before. And they barely ran the ball anyway. Crawford reopened his recruitment, and Kansas got wind of it.
When KU called Parchman and asked him about Crawford’s past, Parchman let them know that he wished he had 100 Jocques Crawfords.
“I’m telling you,” Parchman said, “there’s nothing there anyone in Kansas needs to be concerned about. I’d stake my reputation on it.”
Kansas did its homework on Crawford. KU athletic director Lew Perkins said the school commissioned a “thorough, in-depth, independent assessment” of Crawford’s legal history, which included a background check and discussions with parties involved in the case.
“We recruited Jocques because he is a good person and a good football player,” KU coach Mark Mangino said. “We know that, since the incident, Jocques has conducted himself in an exemplary manner and has done what he needed to do to put the incident behind him.”
A scholarship offer — a second chance — was granted by Kansas, and Crawford accepted. He’ll compete immediately for playing time this fall.
“I’m very appreciative of Kansas and the things they did to check into the real story,” Crawford said. “I had to go out and do something to show people that, hey, I’m not just a person who made a huge mistake in his life. I am somebody who’s going to be positive and do what it takes to make good things happen.”