The Bee's front-page story today about Terry Pettis' troubled history as a Fresno State basketball player raises serious questions about whether the university athletic department ignored rampant marijuana use on the basketball team because it was trying to fill seats at the Save Mart Center. Pettis, who will be sentenced Tuesday for the 2004 murder of 18-year-old Rene Shannon Abbott in a parking lot near the university, agreed to a series of interviews with The Bee's Vaughn McClure.
A Fresno County jury convicted Pettis of Abbott's murder on May 26 following a four-day trial. Pettis still denies that he killed Abbott, despite overwhelming evidence that easily persuaded the jury of his guilt.
But this is the part of the story that stuns me: "Marijuana was a problem my whole time at Fresno State," said Pettis, who spent 19 months with the Bulldogs, "and they [school officials] looked past our marijuana tests my freshman year. The people that looked at our marijuana drug tests my freshman year, it didn't matter to them because we were winning."
That's a statement that Fresno State leaders need to explain or rebut. But as usual in these situations, they refuse to talk publicly. Their hands apparently are tied by student privacy regulations. But whose privacy is being protected since Pettis is talking and his life has already been examined in-depth because of the murder case?
Pettis claims to have failed drug tests nine times during his short time on the basketball team. Here are two more crucial paragraphs from McClure's story:
Current school officials also said they could not discuss Pettis' allegations. Linda Gannaway, coordinator of Fresno State's student-athlete assistance program, pointed to the school's drug-testing policy, which at the time stated an athlete was to be suspended for a year after a fourth positive test.
"I probably failed three drug tests during the time I got back on the team [sophomore year]," Pettis said. "I wished they would have suspended me for that whole year. ... I wish they just would have taken me away from the [basketball] program."
Call me naive, but I think someone at the university needs to either say that Pettis is lying or tell us why they allowed the basketball program to become a haven for marijuana use.
So if drinking was illegal could that also be used as an excuse for behavior?
Legalize it all. Seperate the health concerns from the criminal problems.
I've never cared to try marijuana myself, but lots of people use it without committing murders. Certainly the university has its problems (but then, what major institution doesn't?), and the Lopes hiring was certainly a mistake in hindsight (but how many of us, including The Bee, saw that at the time?), but this seems like a weak attempt to blame the institution for the actions of one individual.
So if the team plays bad, do we blame it on the marijuana or bad coaching? Legalize stupidity...? We have enough societal problems with alcohol. Do you really want to see "Don't Inhale-Don't Drive" bumper stickers...? I would think it's easier living with mistakes I can remember rather than if I (or anyone else for that matter...) was "stoned"...
It's a sad day in Fresno news when all the Bee does is sensationalize the common abuses of the athletic program, Welty, Autry, and 'dumb jocks' who know somewhere inside of their sociopath ways, that doing pot, beating women, and other immoral acts are just normal character defects gone awry. Have some guts and publish real news for a change.
Who in Fresno wants to hear more about another college athlete, administrator, professor, or pro athlete acting macho, saying immature things, and making stupid choices all in the spirit of manly competition? Get with it and report a real tragedy.
Maybe I am cold and callous, but how is it that she is a martyr when her murder came about by caving into drugs, peer pressure, and the personal lack of control not to associate with Pettis, in the first place?
The generation X's, Y's, and ultra-techie-info seekers should learn how to do life without making poor choices. Maybe we could use the iPod to send subliminal messages about the responsibilities innate to proper conduct to our youth.
We are contemptible for not stepping outside the box and saying to parents that they are raising messed up kids. We should pull them aside and show them who ended up murdered or sentenced to prison because of poor choices stemming from the way they are raised.
Pettis is doing life because peers decided his act was punishable and culpable. Someone should tell Pettis, the next time the Bee gets an exclusive interview, that he is 'messed up'- not by pot - not by Fresno State - but because he was lacked self-control and conducted himself poorly in a free society that has rights and rules on how to live and prosper.
Sadly, family, friends, the booster community and Fresno State folks should have spoke openly and honestly to him that a joint, or two, or three, and a drug deal gone wrong, might have caused momentary lapses of self-control in the already flawed character of Pettis. I guess I will stand outside of the box and tell everyone who reads this, that I am among the people who hold him and the victim accountable for their actions.
Terry Pettis -- he of FSU thug-ball fame -- is getting his just dues. But this is what I'm having trouble with: the Internet version of The Bee had a picture of a weeping Kent Wolf, boyfriend of the murdered Abbott girl. She was shot in the midst of a drug-deal gone bad. So, why is drug-dealer Kent Wolf wandering around free having a poor-poor-pitiful-me-party?
At the very least, he was indirectly (?) involved in what happened. A young lady is dead, and even though he will never this side of eternity be convicted of contributing to her death, he must live with the fact that if he hadn't been "into drugs" she would still be alive.
Young people just need to get it through their thick skulls that when you make bad choices, bad things happen.
Re: Sean Dorman's reply. . .
My point is blaming your behavior on marijuana addiction is like saying I am an alcoholic why didn't you stop me from making bad choices while drinking?
Its "victim" mentality. Accept that no matter what substance we put into ourselves, we are responible for our actions.