Ok, so ucla coach Eric Scott will not have any charges pressed against him in the burglary case in Norwalk last month.
From the LA Times
Det. Rick Broussard, the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department's lead investigator on the case, said a 911 caller reported seeing three men forcibly enter the home but that author ities had not been able to re-establish contact with that witness.
He added that it could not be proven that Scott, 32, ever entered a home where deputies later found rifles, shotguns and "a large quantity" of marijuana.
Scott, a UCLA graduate and former player, has been on paid administrative leave since his arrest, which generated information of his criminal history that includes concealed-weapon and disturbing-the-peace misdemeanors between 1996 and 2005.
I read a lot out of that first sentence. It doesn't say that he is innocent it only says that there is no one available or willing to testify. Sounds like a good ole' hood clamp down if you ask me.
This is obviously great news for Scott. But there is still a pall over the ucla Athletic Department in regards to how a person with that type of criminal record ever got a job at ucla. As far as I'm concerned if he is let back on the coaching staff it says two things to me, 1) that someone is asleep at the switch at the Morgan Center for not knowing all the facts of Scott's background and 2) that ucla is so desperate to keep up with USC that they would look the other way in hiring Scott and ultimately brush this incident under the rug.
ucla has always touted their high standards and keeping Scott on flies in the face of those standards. While we have heard all the noise that has come out of their fan base about SC being a thug program etc etc, all this signifies is that ucla really is no better or different than any other program in the sense that they would allow this type of past behavior to permeate their program in order to get on the winning side of the ledger.
Let me be clear, we do not know all of the facts in regards to the hiring of Eric Scott. If he was hired with Dorrell and Guerrero knowing his past and then looked the other way then they do not have a leg to stand on when talking about character. If they didn't know, whatever the reason, and they choose to keep Scott on based on his priors and ucla's supposed high standards then they are no better, or worse, than any other program in trying to secure recruits and/or wins.
Karl Dorrell is woefully out of his depth and his allowing his alma mater's reputation to be besmirched for the sake of securing top recruits by hiring a coach with no college coaching experience, because he can't get them to come to ucla by any other means, only shows how desperate he is. Regardless of what our rivals think of SC, Scott coming back only takes away the bailiwick that they like to use against us when it comes to character and such. Sure SC has had its issues with players behaving badly but not one of our coaches. The character issue at ucla is now moot, they have their dirty laundry just like everyone else and when Dorrell fails to live up to "the minimum expectations" that some want to see he will be fired and ucla will be just another program looking for a head coach.
Either way the fish stinks from the head down and there is something rotten in Westwood.
Simply...their cherry is officially popped.