We had City Boyz Inc, some sort of celebration of thug life and bad spelling.
We had drunk driving
We had credit card fraud and petty theft.
But we never had a senior leader whose name is written into the Iowa record books do this.
This wasn't getting busted for pot. No one cares about that. Everyone smokes pot.
This wasn't an underage drinking ticket or even an OWI.
This was cocaine and pills.
Yes, there is personal responsibility in all of this. No one put the blow up his nose, or signed the lease for him. But several warning signs show up to me immediately.
This was a guy not living with another teammate which seems to be the standard across all campuses on all teams.
And so in asking how this could have happened and what it could mean, I ask where was the leadership on this team?
Iowa City is a small town, even amongst the students. It's not hard to have a reputation on campus.
You mean to tell me that none of the other players on the team, knew his roommate was trouble? Not one of them said, hey DJK, this isn't a good idea, come live with us?
None of the players on the team, went to Kirk and said, hey DJK is living with a drug dealer?
Kirk and/or Soup couldn't have sat him down and had an earnest conversation with him, "you know how much talent you have, but you don't know the NFL. You need to keep your nose clean and you need to get out of this situation."
So while this is all DJK's fault. I think Krik and Co. really dropped the ball.
Where was Chigozi Ejesai (sp?) in all of this? Isn't this his JOB? I'm sorry but this is an epic fail in his job and he needs to be fired.
Where are his teammates? The coaching staff isn't the fuzz, letting your coach know that your teammate is in a bad situation isn't ratting him out.
It says a lot to me about the isolation of DJK and the rest of the team, and that falls on Kirk to demand an environment that stresses togetherness and camaraderie.
It is now apparent that quite simply, that this team isn't particularly close with one another. Yes with 85 guys, you'll have cliques and fights. But their are fraternities that are bigger than that on campus that are able to keep it together better than this.
And now after a disappointing 7-5 season, and a season coming up somewhere between rebuilding and reloading, the shine of the Iowa football team has taken a significant hit... not because of the one incident. Rather because of how an environment where something like this could happen was able to exist so easily.