Being Perfectly Bount

The first real test for Chip Kelly has nothing to do with X's n and O's, and nothing to do with how his team would perform in its first outing.  It has nothing to do with how he would handle running not only the offense, but the defense and special teams too.  To be perfectly "Blount", his true test came in the form of ethics and sportmanship, and had nothing to do with football at all.  How he handles this situation is paramount to his success as not only a football coach, but as a representive of Duck football and the University of Oregon.  If Mr. Kelly should choose to remove Mr. Blount from the team, the message would be sent that indeed the University of Oregon has remained a class act regardless of this one unfortunate event. Mike Bellotti set the bar at a ludicrously high level for all to follow, and we cannot allow the bar to be lowered, even one inch, after the very first football game in the post-Bellotti era. The organization  must refuse to wallow in the quagmire of NCAA football with the likes of Oklahoma and thier fans.  We are above that, and besides, the quarmire is already overflowing with teams that place winning at any cost as not only thier highest priority, but their only priority.  There is no room for the Univeristy of Oregon in the Brea tar pits and I hope there never will be.  I for one, want to be proud of Oregon football.  I want to fly my colors on game day and feel good about "my" team, "my" coach, and "my" players.  I rue the day I will feel the need to make excuses for the behavior and ethics of "my" team.  Real football fans live and die each weekend right along with their favorite team.  They revel in victory and are utterly miserable in defeat, but when the day is over they start looking ahead to the next game.  The joy or glum lasts about one day, two at the most.  Not this time though.  The shear dissapointment of watching something like a sucker punch being delivered from someone wearing an "O" on his helmet almost made me hurl.  It instantly brought back memories of Ohio State's Woody Hayes punching an opponant's running back.  That my friends is how long visuals like this last.  A win or loss is past history within a day or two, but this will live on.  Kicking Blount off the team will not erase what happened, but as in the Woody Hayes case (he was fired), it will at least have an asterisk next to the incident that something, anything, was done about it.  

There is no excuse for what Blount did.  If he is not intelligent enough to know how something like this would effect his life and future livlihood, quite possibly a pro football contract, and is not intelligent enough to know what is acceptible and what is not acceptible behavior as a representive of college football, he is not intelligent enough nor worthy enough to wear green and gold.  I am sure there will be a bucket full of justifications (by him and others) for what he did. We have heard them all; bad childhood, father who left, abusive mother, teased in school, gave a book report with pants unzipped for all to see, dropped on your head as a baby... whatever. We cannot continue allowing things that happened in the past as reasons for how we act today.  Rise above all the excuses because it is up to you to stop the vicious cycle.  Is your future son going to say " I am in prison today because my dad was kicked off his college football team"?  The bad things that might have happened in the past were just that, bad things.  Bad actions on your part now does not erase past accounts.  Only good things do that.  Chip needs to step up to the plate, Bount needs to take one for the team, and if neither of these things happen I need to find a (gulp!), BSU hat to wear.