Article on UM player Russum
Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 4:04 pm
From Wednesday's Lewiston Morning Tribune.
Russum back on track with Griz; Following scandalous dismissal from Arizona State, Lewiston High grad rebuilds his promising football career at Montana
By JOSH WRIGHT of the Tribune
This column catches up with area athletes competing in the collegiate ranks
His career path was mapped out to T. Go to Arizona State. Work through the system. Be a three-year starter. Take a shot at the NFL.
It was all in front of Brent Russum. He had the tools -- size, athleticism, footwork -- to excel as a Pac-10 offensive lineman. And he had the desire.
But in the almost two years since his plan derailed -- after being booted from the ASU football team for allegedly photographing a naked female student without her permission -- Russum's been left contemplating a bevy of unanswered questions.
Could he, for instance, walk back into Lewiston High, approach his old librarian, Ms. Funk, and tell his side of the sorted story?
Not right now, the hulking tackle says. A "stigma" still hovers around him, and it doesn't seem to be going away soon.
"People judge me on what they read," Russum, now at the University of Montana, told the Tribune recently. "That's the reason I'm talking to you. I want to clear it up a little bit."
Russum's case, in fact, went to a grand jury, but he was never charged, a Maricopa County Attorney's Office spokeswoman said. What would have been a Class 5 felony in Arizona evaporated into a cloud of allegations and bitterness.
He finished his time at LHS as a coveted football prospect. With a regimented training plan and eating schedule, Russum transformed himself from a lanky, 205-pound athlete into a 280-pound specimen.
Soon, big-time schools started calling.
There "was a big appeal (for him) when he was coming out of here," Bengals football coach Emmett Dougherty said. "There's a lot of big guys out there. But you have to be athletic."
Ultimately, Russum chose ASU because it was geared toward his needs. Its weight-lifting program had been voted No. 1 in the nation in '04 by Sports Illustrated, and he was going to play for another Idaho native, Dirk Koetter.
During his redshirt year, he started a "pretty common" relationship with another freshman. She was in a human sexuality class, and they quickly started experimenting sexually, Russum says.
One day in the spring they both agreed, he says, to make a sex tape. Russum's teammate, Jonathan Lehmann, also took part.
According to details of a police report published in the Arizona Republic, the woman, who was "very intoxicated," went to the two players' dorm room and started to "fool around" with Russum.
Lehmann, who had faked going to sleep, then started filming under bed sheets, the report said. The woman asked Lehmann to stop and then passed out.
She later woke up to find Russum and Lehmann taking nude photos of her, according to police interviews.
"I'm not going to lie," Russum says. "Her and I planned to do some promiscuous stuff, or immoral in some people's eyes. ... We were both young and chose to do something. It got out of hand."
He was arrested days later, while in a geology class. Even then, he thought the problem would be quickly resolved.
"Usually you talk to a lawyer," Russum says, "but I was like, 'There's not problem here. Her and I were practically dating.' ... I told them everything I knew."
Once Russum was released by police, he immediately went to Koetter to tell him what happened. The coach listened to his story, then "told me that he had to kick me off the team," Russum says.
In a few frantic hours, the lineman had gone from being in class to being handcuffed to making national headlines.
Russum contends Koetter, who has since been fired and replaced by Dennis Erickson, wrongfully ousted him from the team. Arizona State's code of conduct, he says, outlines that a student who's charged, convicted or admits to a felony can be automatically dismissed.
None of that applies in his case, Russum says.
Repeated attempts to reach Koetter, now the offensive coordinator of the Jacksonville Jaguars, were unsuccessful. Arizona State officials, meanwhile, would not comment on Russum.
Why was he dismissed so quickly?
One reason might be that Koetter was feeling pressure from school administrators to not wait handing out a punishment. At the time, the Sun Devil program was dealing with the messy case of Loren Wade, a tailback charged with murdering former ASU player Brandon Falkner outside a nightclub.
Critics claimed the coach and the athletic department mishandled Wade's incident.
"Timing was the key issue," says Brent Myers, Russum's offensive line coach at ASU. "There was a very small window of tolerance."
Russum, though, maintains he never got a satisfactory explanation from the school. To him, his case is far from resolved. He is considering suing the school down the line.
Meanwhile, Myers -- now the O-line coach at Louisville -- says he always believed Russum and Lehmann's side of the story. "I thought those kids looked me in the eye and told the truth."
Dougherty is also supportive of his former player.
"He didn't do himself proud," the coach said. But "I'm real proud of him. He's made the best of things at Montana."
Russum started 11 of 14 games last season in the Grizzlies' run to the Division I-AA semifinals. Whether or not he makes it professionally after next season, the 6-foot-4, 290-pound junior wants to delve into some sort of business administration.
"I'm not afraid of not going to the NFL," he says, "and I'm not banking on it. Right now, I'm planning on becoming a business man."
Russum back on track with Griz; Following scandalous dismissal from Arizona State, Lewiston High grad rebuilds his promising football career at Montana
By JOSH WRIGHT of the Tribune
This column catches up with area athletes competing in the collegiate ranks
His career path was mapped out to T. Go to Arizona State. Work through the system. Be a three-year starter. Take a shot at the NFL.
It was all in front of Brent Russum. He had the tools -- size, athleticism, footwork -- to excel as a Pac-10 offensive lineman. And he had the desire.
But in the almost two years since his plan derailed -- after being booted from the ASU football team for allegedly photographing a naked female student without her permission -- Russum's been left contemplating a bevy of unanswered questions.
Could he, for instance, walk back into Lewiston High, approach his old librarian, Ms. Funk, and tell his side of the sorted story?
Not right now, the hulking tackle says. A "stigma" still hovers around him, and it doesn't seem to be going away soon.
"People judge me on what they read," Russum, now at the University of Montana, told the Tribune recently. "That's the reason I'm talking to you. I want to clear it up a little bit."
Russum's case, in fact, went to a grand jury, but he was never charged, a Maricopa County Attorney's Office spokeswoman said. What would have been a Class 5 felony in Arizona evaporated into a cloud of allegations and bitterness.
He finished his time at LHS as a coveted football prospect. With a regimented training plan and eating schedule, Russum transformed himself from a lanky, 205-pound athlete into a 280-pound specimen.
Soon, big-time schools started calling.
There "was a big appeal (for him) when he was coming out of here," Bengals football coach Emmett Dougherty said. "There's a lot of big guys out there. But you have to be athletic."
Ultimately, Russum chose ASU because it was geared toward his needs. Its weight-lifting program had been voted No. 1 in the nation in '04 by Sports Illustrated, and he was going to play for another Idaho native, Dirk Koetter.
During his redshirt year, he started a "pretty common" relationship with another freshman. She was in a human sexuality class, and they quickly started experimenting sexually, Russum says.
One day in the spring they both agreed, he says, to make a sex tape. Russum's teammate, Jonathan Lehmann, also took part.
According to details of a police report published in the Arizona Republic, the woman, who was "very intoxicated," went to the two players' dorm room and started to "fool around" with Russum.
Lehmann, who had faked going to sleep, then started filming under bed sheets, the report said. The woman asked Lehmann to stop and then passed out.
She later woke up to find Russum and Lehmann taking nude photos of her, according to police interviews.
"I'm not going to lie," Russum says. "Her and I planned to do some promiscuous stuff, or immoral in some people's eyes. ... We were both young and chose to do something. It got out of hand."
He was arrested days later, while in a geology class. Even then, he thought the problem would be quickly resolved.
"Usually you talk to a lawyer," Russum says, "but I was like, 'There's not problem here. Her and I were practically dating.' ... I told them everything I knew."
Once Russum was released by police, he immediately went to Koetter to tell him what happened. The coach listened to his story, then "told me that he had to kick me off the team," Russum says.
In a few frantic hours, the lineman had gone from being in class to being handcuffed to making national headlines.
Russum contends Koetter, who has since been fired and replaced by Dennis Erickson, wrongfully ousted him from the team. Arizona State's code of conduct, he says, outlines that a student who's charged, convicted or admits to a felony can be automatically dismissed.
None of that applies in his case, Russum says.
Repeated attempts to reach Koetter, now the offensive coordinator of the Jacksonville Jaguars, were unsuccessful. Arizona State officials, meanwhile, would not comment on Russum.
Why was he dismissed so quickly?
One reason might be that Koetter was feeling pressure from school administrators to not wait handing out a punishment. At the time, the Sun Devil program was dealing with the messy case of Loren Wade, a tailback charged with murdering former ASU player Brandon Falkner outside a nightclub.
Critics claimed the coach and the athletic department mishandled Wade's incident.
"Timing was the key issue," says Brent Myers, Russum's offensive line coach at ASU. "There was a very small window of tolerance."
Russum, though, maintains he never got a satisfactory explanation from the school. To him, his case is far from resolved. He is considering suing the school down the line.
Meanwhile, Myers -- now the O-line coach at Louisville -- says he always believed Russum and Lehmann's side of the story. "I thought those kids looked me in the eye and told the truth."
Dougherty is also supportive of his former player.
"He didn't do himself proud," the coach said. But "I'm real proud of him. He's made the best of things at Montana."
Russum started 11 of 14 games last season in the Grizzlies' run to the Division I-AA semifinals. Whether or not he makes it professionally after next season, the 6-foot-4, 290-pound junior wants to delve into some sort of business administration.
"I'm not afraid of not going to the NFL," he says, "and I'm not banking on it. Right now, I'm planning on becoming a business man."
Oh man, what kind of cheers will our creative kids like Catinthehat be able to come up with that third weekend game in Bozo this year 
Suppose we're going to have to listen to a lot of Village People tunes by the band?
Well, takes one to know one for we know the self-proclaimed-all-knowing (according to him) would never butcher the language 
) it's huge.