Is Kramer Staying a Good Thing?

[Bleedinbluengold]

So, now we have to hold a coach accountable for the actions of players that he dismisses from the team? Don'tcha think there was a reason Krames dismissed these guys in the first place?

If Fuller would have been arrested in June, I assume Krames would have dealt with it the same as he dealt with John Rushing.

Also, yesterday I posted a list of programs that have had criminal issues and which were easily recognized in the public forum. But, seriously, if you would not let your kid play for a program because some former players were arrested/convicted of crimes, then you are going to have hard time finding a place for your kid to play.

But, also as I posted yesterday, the decsion as to which program you would allow your kid to go is your business, and I respect that.

[crazycat]

I respect the last post but I also agree with 1234. He has some very valid points. I played for the Cats and right now I would not want my son to play for Kramer. I like the Kramer (who doesn't) he is very personable, but someone has to be held accountable.


Merry Christmas to everyone from Huskerland!

I don't know about the rest of you, but I like holding the responsible party(ies) accountable. I hope I'm not the only one that feels this way. Is Kramer responsible? Is he on trial? Does MSU have a less strict recruiting policy than other schools? Is that policy on trial? Unless any of those are the case, then I think it's completely unfair to punish Kramer and MSU.

If you say you don't want your son to play for Kramer, then you're punishing Kramer and MSU. Give me a reason why you'd do that?

[omahacat]

Do not confuse my statements. I would love more than anything for my son to play for the Cats. That would be a dream for me. I would not want him to play for the current coaching staff and the troubles it's dealing with.

[catamaran]

Even though this doesn't fit within society today, I have an idea who to hold accountable.....those who committed the crimes

I am pretty sure society is in full agreement on that one ... especially considering that the people who allegedly committed the crimes are the ones being processed by the legal system.

The Fuller case is the perfect example of people blaming someone else. By all accounts the coaching staff couldn't have recruited a better citizen. Now that he's been arrested it somehow has become Kramer/MSU's fault that this kid got into trouble when actually its his for making bad choices. Now if it somehow comes out that the staff was involved in his crimes, then that's another story

[SonomaCat]

Even though this doesn't fit within society today, I have an idea who to hold accountable.....those who committed the crimes

I am pretty sure society is in full agreement on that one ... especially considering that the people who allegedly committed the crimes are the ones being processed by the legal system.

The Fuller case is the perfect example of people blaming someone else. By all accounts the coaching staff couldn't have recruited a better citizen. Now that he's been arrested it somehow has become Kramer/MSU's fault that this kid got into trouble when actually its his for making bad choices. Now if it somehow comes out that the staff was involved in his crimes, then that's another story

Nobody is blaming anybody else for what Fuller did. Fuller is being held fully accountable for his actions. Everybody is in full agreement that Fuller is the one who should be prosecuted for this crime.

What others are saying is that because Fuller was here as a result of being actively recruited for the football team, and because several other former players were also recruited here for the football team and also committed crimes, that perhaps that common link to the football team may be a place that attention should be focused to determine if this was merely a coincidence, or if perhaps changes can or should be made to reduce the chances of this happening in the future.

I believe that is a perfectly rationale and reasonable question to ask, and the comments from Kramer this week tell me that he is equally concerned about this question, and is proactively doing what needs to be done to address the question.

I also believe that the work that he and Fields have been doing since last summer, and will continue to do, will have very favorable results for everyone.

[catamaran]

As with my example, there isn't anyway to eliminate the possibility in reality. On paper, MSU couldn't have recruited a better student/athlete than Fuller and he's gotten himself in a mess of trouble, showing in turn that any kid can make bad decisions

[Helcat72]

Even though this doesn't fit within society today, I have an idea who to hold accountable.....those who committed the crimes

I am pretty sure society is in full agreement on that one ... especially considering that the people who allegedly committed the crimes are the ones being processed by the legal system.

The Fuller case is the perfect example of people blaming someone else. By all accounts the coaching staff couldn't have recruited a better citizen. Now that he's been arrested it somehow has become Kramer/MSU's fault that this kid got into trouble when actually its his for making bad choices. Now if it somehow comes out that the staff was involved in his crimes, then that's another story

Nobody is blaming anybody else for what Fuller did. Fuller is being held fully accountable for his actions. Everybody is in full agreement that Fuller is the one who should be prosecuted for this crime.

What others are saying is that because Fuller was here as a result of being actively recruited for the football team, and because several other former players were also recruited here for the football team and also committed crimes, that perhaps that common link to the football team may be a place that attention should be focused to determine if this was merely a coincidence, or if perhaps changes can or should be made to reduce the chances of this happening in the future.

I believe that is a perfectly rationale and reasonable question to ask, and the comments from Kramer this week tell me that he is equally concerned about this question, and is proactively doing what needs to be done to address the question.

I also believe that the work that he and Fields have been doing since last summer, and will continue to do, will have very favorable results for everyone.

How do you get rid of holdover "bad apples" that haunt your program? When recruiting you don't have a 100% way of knowing who has dark secrets in his personality or his reputation. All you can do if you find out they are defective is throw them out of the program. If they get booted off the team...how do you get them to leave town before they corrupt your other players?

It seems as though these people find Bozeman a safe haven to conduct their business away from the normal competition of the big city. You can't blame Kramer for this. He is just trying to get the best football talent he can find that hasn't been tapped by other bigger programs.

[SonomaCat]

As with my example, there isn't anyway to eliminate the possibility in reality. On paper, MSU couldn't have recruited a better student/athlete than Fuller and he's gotten himself in a mess of trouble, showing in turn that any kid can make bad decisions

I agree. But how about the other guys who got into trouble? And does the program do enough mentoring of guys to guide them away from bad decisions that might come up and help them succeed in all facets of their life?

And before anybody goes all radio talk show on me and screams about not needing to get touchy feely with these players and that they should know how to behave on their own, yada, yada, yada ... how many of you left home at age 18 and moved thousands of miles away to a place that was completely foreign to you in which you were simultaneously revered and despised (due to their high profile status) by certain members of the community? There does need to be a support system for these guys to deal with the many different sources of stress that are in their lives (school, distance to family and other traditional social groups, team obligations, community obligations, fame, culture unlike that which they grew up with, etc., etc.). Does MSU do a good job in this area? I honestly have no idea ... but I'm sure that question is being asked internally.

These are certainly some of the questions that are being asked internally, and I am confident that this process will yield improvements to the program that will make MSU an even better place to produce the leaders of tomorrow.

[SonomaCat]

How do you get rid of holdover "bad apples" that haunt your program? When recruiting you don't have a 100% way of knowing who has dark secrets in his personality or his reputation. All you can do if you find out they are defective is throw them out of the program. If they get booted off the team...how do you get them to leave town before they corrupt your other players?

It seems as though these people find Bozeman a safe haven to conduct their business away from the normal competition of the big city. You can't blame Kramer for this. He is just trying to get the best football talent he can find that hasn't been tapped by other bigger programs.

I totally agree.

But that begs the question ... is what we have seen completely coincidence? If not, what are the factors at play that led to this unquestionably abnormal spike in incidents like this?

I personally think it is probably just one group of guys who collectively made some bad decisions, and they all got busted together ... and the whole ugly murder from earlier in the year gave the authorities the insight and motivation to follow every last lead to make sure they got everybody involved (and I would guess that all arrested may not have been major dealers). But that's just a guess on my part.

Whatever the case may be, MSU is saddled with this reality, and MSU will be asking the questions of what can be done to minimize the chance of this happening again in the future.

I certainly don't think that MSU has been negligent in any way (and I get pissed when I hear people make those suggestions as well), and I suspect that if you really wanted to dig deep (which few locals do in any program), you could certainly find similar things being done by players and former players in virtually all programs.

Maybe MSU just got dealt a bad hand in this one, but the reality is that it is the hand they were dealt, and as a result, they are the ones that need to take the lead in asking questions and presenting potential answers that can reduce this sort of thing in our program.

And I would not at all be suprised if the painful experiences of MSU end up benefitting many other programs in terms of the insight that it gained.

[Weltercat]

Weltercat, I think you will have to eat your words next year. The Cats will have a 9 and 2 season in 2007 and possibly a 10 and 1.

Robcat
I hope you are right. I would love to eat those words but even as good as the talent will be next year I think 9-2 or 10-1 with a BSC schedule is a wet dream.

[PapaG]

Is Kramer Staying a Good Thing?

Yes.

Next topic please.