Chris L. Rucker Charged With OWI for Sunday Morning Incident
by LVS on Oct 12, 2010 2:41 PM CDT
in Michigan State Spartans Football
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PrintFrom the "I'm sick of reading stories like this" file:
Michigan State senior cornerback Chris L. Rucker was charged early Sunday morning for operating while intoxicated.
According to a ticket released by East Lansing police, Rucker was stopped at 2:19 a.m. on the 300 block of Grove Street in a 2002 Oldsmobile and had a blood-alcohol level of .10.
For those wondering, the 300 block of Grove Street is the short block immediately north of Albert, where the 7-11 and parking ramp are.
Rucker's alcohol level was .02 above the legal limit, so he, like Korie Lucious, probably would have been in the clear had he waited another half-hour or so before getting behind the wheel. Sadly, that's not what happened. For a first time offender, this would seem to merit a one-game suspension. However, Rucker was involved in the Rather Hall incident last year, so it remains to be seen whether an additional repeat offender punishment will be tacked on. Rucker is still indefinitely suspended, as far as we know, and his arraignment is scheduled for (or before - Ed.) October 20.
On the coaches' conference call this morning, Mark Dantonio reiterated that freshman Darqueze Dennard will be starting in place of Rucker on Saturday against Illinois. Dennard impressed during preseason practice, but has played little so far this season. The onus will certainly be on Johnny Adams, Marcus Hyde, and Trenton Robinson to step up in Rucker's absence.
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Apparently
Michigan’s WR Daryl Stonum was on probation last year for OWI (suspended one game for this) and violated his probation over the summer and spent 3 days in Washtenaw County Jail. Rodriguez decided extra punishment was unnecessary for Stonum because he was up front about it.
Point being, another Big Ten coach in a similar situation didn’t feel the need to dole out a particularly severe punishment, so I won’t be shocked if Rucker is playing again by the time of the Iowa game.
Es gibt keine Freude wie Schadenfreude
For those wondering, the 300 block of Grove Street is the short block immediately north of Albert, where the 7-11 and parking ramp are.
Isn’t this also like 100 feet from ELPD HQ?
If it is, I remember from my days there the cops occasionally camping out at the exit to the parking structure, and speaking to kids in each car to ascertain whether to administer a sobriety test. Handing out DUIs there must be like shooting drunked fish in a whiskey barrel.
Yup
Grove actually turns into Linden, which is where the police station is.
by Ducking Delvon on Oct 12, 2010 3:18 PM CDT up reply actions
He was also warned for leaving the scene of a property damage accident. So, looks like maybe he hit something with his car and tried to skedaddle before the cops got him.
This is super disappointing. The players deserve a little celebratory fun, but why the hell can’t they be smart about it!
Be smart about it
Seriously, you guys run the campus right now – HAVE SOMONE ELSE DRIVE YOU HOME!!!
Even if it’s someone who is legally drunk, unless you are also a minor (which of course Rucker is not), why take this risk yourself?
I promise, if he went up to anybody in town that night, & said “I’m Chris L. Rucker, starting corner on the football team, will you give me a lift home?” the answer would be a resounding YES.
Here's the thing.
I’m not excusing his behavior in any way shape or form.
If this was not the first time he has had alcohol and he only blew a .10 then more than likely he felt fine.
Now should he, after having a few drinks, thought," Even if I feel fine, I should probably get someone to give me a lift home." Yes. But remember he’s 21 (or 22), kids feel invincible.
Stupid decision on his part.
How about walk?
It was 70+ degrees out and he’s 21 year old football player. One would think he’d have the stamina to hike it home.
Hindsight is 20/20 though and he’s certainly not the only kid on campus that got popped that night.
Apparently
Read somewhere on the rcmb that there were 6 caught out Sunday night
Es gibt keine Freude wie Schadenfreude
Per Lisa Byington
DB coach Harlon Barnett tonight on Rucker: “he’ll learn from this on the field and off the field and be back w/ us soon” #msu
Es gibt keine Freude wie Schadenfreude
And from Rexrode's blog
MSU defensive backs coach Harlon Barnett on suspended CB Chris L. Rucker:
“We anticipate him back, absolutely. And when he does come back, anticipate him picking up where he left off. He’ll be fine.
“Great young man, great kid, just made a bad decision. But he’s a great young man. If he wasn’t, I wouldn’t say it. … Just bad decision and hopefully those bad decisions are out of him forever, and he can come back and finish out strong. I’ve talked to him and he feels bad about it and he knows right from wrong and all that kind of stuff. So he’ll come back a better person for it.”
Es gibt keine Freude wie Schadenfreude
wow
anybody else seen this? Yet another shot to the rep of MSU
Eh
I think that’s a shot at the state of college sports generally—and not really anything anyone didn’t already think was going on.
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Oct 13, 2010 7:13 AM CDT up reply actions
Honestly, I don't really care.
That stuff happened when I was 12. It has absolutely nothing to do with the program or athletic department today.
PP-TPW.
The Only Colors
Anyone else's....
…first thought ’Oh, could have been worse"?
One game suspension is probably fair, but I wonder what he might get from the courts for getting an OWI while on probation for his (apparently limited, he wasn’t accused of hitting anyone) in the Rather Hall scuffle.
Ugh
Maybe I’m overreacting, but I am absolutely sick of hearing about our players getting in trouble with crap off the field like this. The entire Rather Hall incident last year was a nightmare, and now a kid involved in that is getting in trouble AGAIN. For as much respect as we may be gaining on the field this year, stuff like this off the field quickly removes a good amount of it. Some people may write off an OWI as “minor,” and that kids do this kind of stuff all the time, but I really have to disagree. I’ve gone to likely hundreds of parties, been drunk with hundreds of people, and I think in three and a half years since I started drinking, I’ve seen or heard of maybe two people to drive off after a party still drunk. 99.9999% of people I’ve partied with end up crashing at the house/apartment/wherever we are, or wait until 3 or 4 AM and they’re clearly sober, or get a cab (there’s only 22 different cab companies working in EL, afterall), or don’t drink that much since they’d have to move their car by 2 AM so they don’t get a parking ticket, or SOMETHING.
After seeing many, many different sides of the social scene of MSU, I just don’t see this kind of behavior being forgivable. Especially this kind of behavior from a senior, who by this age should be able to understand either a) when he’s capable of driving, or b) how much alcohol it takes to get him drunk, or some combination of the two to give him enough reasoning to say “hey, this probably isn’t a good idea right now.”
Bleh. The entire thing just irritates me.
About Rather Hall
Not that I’m trying to minimize it, BUT, on nearly every campus every year, the football team has an ongoing feud with at least one Greek house. This has been happening forEVER – just look at the Tri-Lambs at Adams College!
When I was at MSU, there were always rumors about football team fights with this house or that, and my fiends at places like U-M, Wisc., CMU, WMU, OSU, etc, had all the same stories.
The only difference here, is, that the team chose as it’s ’09 Greek rival a FRAT WITH NO HOUSE!!! And that is the reason this got so much pub – bc the fight happened at a dorm. Had this been a normal frat, and the team just invaded the house and beat up a few frat boys, this never would have seen the light of day.
So I guess the moral of the story is, use better judgment when you decide which house is your rival for the season – make sure those guys have their own house, off campus, that you can go into & destroy. It’s not like a frat is going to call the cops on you, I highly doubt any frat house off campus wants the ELPD combing through it.
I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you
This is sort of the same thing I was talking about, the whole “oh, well, they’re kids, and this is just what happens.” Again, in my time at MSU (I graduated Dec. ‘09), people just didn’t have these kinds of mentalities, and like I said, I’d like to think I saw a pretty wide variety of campus (sub)-cultures.
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