Tag Archives: Florida State

Jameis Winston and FSU Need a Timeout

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By Ellen Chlumecky

Jameis Winston has not been doing himself any favors these past couple years at Florida State University. He has stolen, behaved inappropriately in public at the Florida State University student union, and he was accused of sexually assaulting of a woman in December 2012. I understand college students acting in a childish manner at certain points in their career but he clearly exceeded his strikes and now is being punished for it.

On Wednesday, January 7th, attorneys for the women who accused Winston, filed a civil suit in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida against FSU. The woman is suing them alleging that the university did not properly protect her Title IX rights. The woman’s attorneys demand a trial by jury and damages from FSU for fostering a “hostile educational environment.” Her attorneys stated that FSU’s athletic department deliberately concealed the rape from the university and did not investigate the allegations as required by federal Title IX laws.

The woman alleged that Winston sexually assaulted her in his apartment on Dec. 7, 2012. Winston and his attorneys contented that the sexual encounter was consensual. Winston was also never charged by either the Tallahassee police or the state attorney’s office.

Last month alone, Winston was cleared of four violations of FSU’s student conduct code hearing after a two-day student judiciary hearing. Why any university would want a student that continue to causes this many problems, no matter how good he may be at football and baseball, is beyond me. While the main violations have been accusations and have not been clearly confirmed or denied, he still has committed several inappropriate acts that are not respectable for any college student.

As any avid sports fan hopes to have is for the best players around for their selective team. However, I would hope most people would not want players who do not have correct moral compasses, especially an athlete who continually disrespects women as often as people have been reporting he does. In Jameis Winston’s actions, he is showing that he clearly does not know wrong from right or just chooses to ignore the rules. His attorneys can only defend Winston for so long until he does something that he cannot take back.

Jameis Winston announced that he intends to enter the NFL Draft inside of returning to Florida State University for his junior season. Since he is three years removed from his high school graduation, he is eligible to enter the NFL Draft as a sophomore. The day he is drafted, the day he becomes the NFL’s problem instead of FSU’s.

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NCAA Investingating Jameis Winston for Sale of Autographed Memorabilia

By Matt Rogers

Another year, another investigation and suspension by the NCAA due to the distribution of current FBS football athletes’ autographed memorabilia. This year the culprits are University of Georgia Running Back, Todd Gurley, and Florida State Quarterback, Jameis Winston. One thing that both of these players have in common is they are both two of the most recognizable names in college football and they are, or were, both prominent leading candidates to win for the 2014 Heisman Memorial Trophy.

It seems that every year in recent seasons, a star player has been either investigated or suspended for an incident that most people of the general public would not consider wrongdoing. Receiving benefit for their own autographed jerseys does not seem to be something worthy of receiving a suspension that could harm the player’s stock in the upcoming draft.

Anything Jameis Winston does, especially anything that Jameis Winston does wrong, is going to be discussed countless times on all of the national news and sports channels, especially ESPN, the most viewed sports channel on television. Since the incident broke, SportsCenter has run the story on every episode of the show, at least once, sometimes multiple times per show.

It does not help Jameis Winston’s case that he has already been in the news for all of the wrong reasons since this past summer. First it was the criminal sexual assault case stemming from a December 2012 incident. Then, it was for shoplifting crab legs from a local Tallahassee grocery store. In recent weeks, it has been for publicly yelling obscenities that resulted in a game suspension from Florida State’s game against Clemson. After mentioning all of these incidents, the investigation that Florida State University is currently conducting into the sexual assault case for a possible code of conduct violation this week is also worthy of a mention because of the attention it is receiving from the national media.

Whether Jameis Winston is actually guilty of any of these crimes is meaningless at this point. The incidents have received so much attention from the media that the public consumes that Winston has been assumed guilty of all of them in the court of public opinion. This may or may not be fair, but it is what it has come to when dealing with the multiple incidents that Winston has been involved in. The media and NCAA are solely responsible for all of the praise and criticism that the most successful players, like Winston, receive from the opinions of the public.

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Is Jameis Winston Too Much of a Distraction for Florida State?

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By Kate Roth

It seems as though the media cannot get enough of Florida State star quarterback, Jameis Winston. There is always a story talking about Winston’s talent on the field or more recently his troubles off the field. The question now is not whether or not the spotlight will be on Winston, but rather will that spotlight serve as a distraction for the FSU football program.

There have been more breaking news stories about Winston in the past two months than most players have had in their entire football careers. Just in the past three days there were numerous stories surrounding Winston, involving the alleged sexual assault case and now claims of Winston signing autographs in exchange for money.

It just seems as though this young athlete cannot catch a break. Once one story starts to die down, one or two more pop right back up in the media, putting Winston under fire again.

What most people don’t realize as they read these headlines and watch these stories is that this negative attention is not only effecting Jameis, but his coaches and teammates as well.

As much as players try to turn their heads to media and ignore the stories, it is almost impossible for them to go through their daily lives without hearing all these claims being made against the star of their team. Situations like this make it easy for a team to lose focus, and no matter how hard they try they will always be distracted by the media (positive or negative) that surrounds their team.

This can be seen by watching the highlights of the Florida State versus Syracuse game this past Saturday. Even though FSU came away with a 38-20 away victory, it was clear that this was not the team’s sharpest performance, Jameis included. Passes that usually come naturally to Winston seemed to falling short and the team’s overall performance did not live up to the expectations of being the number one team in the nation, leaving the voters no choice but to move Mississippi State into the number one spot after their incredible performance against Auburn.

Now the pressure is on for number two Florida State as the fifth ranked Fighting Irish of Notre Dame come to town this Saturday. Not only is this the biggest game of the year thus far for FSU, but it will be showcased as the college football game of the week on College GameDay.

If there was ever a time that a team needed to get rid of off the field distractions this would be it. Unfortunately for FSU, it does not look like the distractions are going to end any time soon, as long as Jameis Winston remains their starting quarterback.

It will be interesting to see how the team handles all of the pressure and distraction this week as they aim to stay undefeated and regain their spot as the number one team in the nation.

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Famous Jameis: Where is this Star Heading and the Dark Cloud Circling Florida State Football

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By Kaleb Page

Nobody can deny the talent they have seen from game to game by Jameis Winston over his short time at Florida State. On the field his precision passing, passion for the game and command of the team has those at the next level drooling at what they could get. However, the star that is Jameis Winston could be on a collision course with a fate that nobody expected when he burst on the scene.

It all started on December 7th, 2012 when a female student was allegedly a victim of sexual assault by a male the morning after going to a local night club in Tallahassee, Florida. It took 34 days for the police to identify the man who did this and it was the victim who identified who it was, not police; the man identified was Jameis Winston. Prosecutors then waited another two weeks to contact Jameis about this, and then went on to do an even bigger baffling move. Without even interviewing witnesses or getting a DNA sample from Jameis, the case was closed on February 11th, 2013. But wait there is more. After letting nine months pass, on November 14th, 2013 investigators finally took interviews and a DNA sample from Winston. Ultimately leading to a ruling by the local prosecutor to not prosecute Jameis due to lack of evidence.

This whole thing from the start reeked of fishy methods and things done not in the sake of justice and truth but rather in the best interest of the school and its athletics. This event also brought into question the character of Jameis and how could he possibly do something like that or even put himself in that situation. This event is getting more press of late due to a report issued by The New York Times on October 10th, 2014. This report had shocking evidence as to how bad the university and law enforcement handled this situation. The school and law enforcement should be ashamed of how this all was handled and is still being played out. This made me think of a big question that could be added into this situation: How far will schools go to keep their star talent on the field?

Even though that event is the most serious and needs more attention, that was just the beginning of things that left people around the country wondering: What is Jameis thinking?

The same year of the alleged sexual assault (2012), Jameis and teammates had a BB gun fight in their apartment causing damages up in the area of $4,000.  Then in April of this year, Jameis went to a local grocery store and was caught stealing crab legs. He went on to make an apology and said “he forgot.” Then in the student union of Florida State he was seen on top of a table screaming an explicit phrase that got him suspended for the entire game against Clemson.

The straw that could break the camel’s back might be on its way. Recent developments are showing that the compliance department within Florida State athletics is investigating more than 950 autographed items by Winston found on the same site as Georgia’s suspended running back Todd Gurley, who had 500 items on the site. With this being a relatively new development it will be interesting if Winston will receive the same punishment as Gurley and be suspended for the rest of the season, thus possibly ending his Florida State football career.

Will the punishment happen though? From the track record of little to nothing done to discipline Jameis for his actions, my answer to that question would be no. Now Jameis may be a good person deep down and since I don’t know him maybe I should step back on my judgment. However with that said, it is hard to look at the list of bad judgment that follows him and not make a judgment of my own about the person he is. I wish Jameis for all his talent he had on the field, had just the equal amount of talent to think before he acts.

As for the big storm cloud building by the day around not only Jameis but around Florida State athletics and Tallahassee law enforcement, only time will tell the implications of their actions. It will most certainly get worse before it is all over, and for all that Florida State has built in the past years that made them into a premiere place to be, it all could come tumbling down. The investigators and prosecutor as well could see their credibility and reputation tarnished. But this all circles back to one person: Jameis Winston. Now is the time for this star to either wake up and become something better on and off the field, or continue on this path.

It is either he goes on to shine like so many of us believed when he just began, or this star will become like so many stars before it and implode on itself, turning into a black hole full of mystery. Mystery as to what could have been of Jameis Winston.

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