Rap Video Controversy

Going into the 2008 NCAA Football season the Oklahoma Sooners had secured themselves an excellent crop of rookies with their best recruit being Josh Jarboe. Jarboe is 6-3 195lbs and was ranked as the 10th best receiver recruit in the entire nation. However Jarboe came with some serious baggage as in his senior year of High School he was arrested on weapons charges when he brought a gun to school.

Now when they recruited him Oklahoma and Head Coach Bob Stoops were well aware of these charges and they made a commitment to the young man that they were going to look past this incident and allow him to come play. However 2 weeks ago a Youtube video was released that showed Jarboe rapping in a “derogatory manner” and Jarboe was subsequently kicked off of the team.

"We are disappointed in this outcome, but our complete review and this final decision is in the best interest of our program," Stoops said in a statement. "We outlined for Josh the expectations we had for and, unfortunately, those expectations have not been met. Josh needs to learn from this experience. We hope he can move forward in a positive manner."

I think this is a complete cop out by Stoops and Oklahoma. Rap is just music. Just because in his freestyle he said the word “gun” doesn’t mean that he is going to shoot somebody or have another gun related incident. People have been rapping about violence for decades now and how many rappers actually shoot people? It is an expressive art form that often gets taken out of context by people who aren’t familiar with it.

To make matters worse only days earlier Notre Dame freshman quarterback Jimmy Clausen was photographed drinking at a party. Notre Dame took no disciplinary action on Clausen and people have already forgotten about it. Now to me this is a more severe offense as by drinking that beer Clausen was breaking the law by drinking under age. All Jarboe did was rap and he gets kicked out of school. Maybe it is a racial thing but I highly doubt it. I think that Clausen being a quarterback at a powerhouse school like Notre Dame means he can get away with more than a receiver at Oklahoma. However it just shows how unfairly Jarboe was treated.

I also feel that Oklahoma has let this kid down in a way. What if instead of just kicking him off the team and giving up on him the coaches at the school and his new teammates tried to help him change his life for the better. Maybe if they sat down with him and explained that this sort of behavior, while innocent to Jarboe, reflects badly on him and the school he would realize he needs to be more conscience of what he does. I can think of numerous stories of players who had rough pasts and corrected their lives through sports.

Look at Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers. Only 12 months ago Hamilton was in rehab and was addicted to drugs and alcohol. Now he is clean and sober and is having an MVP type season. Imagine they had just kicked him out of baseball and everyone had given up on him? Jarboe is getting a raw deal from Oklahoma and I think that he should have been allowed to stay on the team.

I think that a bigger moral of this story though is that in this day and age athletes and celebrities need to understand that there are so many people out there with cameras on their cell phones and anyone can use Youtube that they need to always be conscience of what they are doing. People are always going to try and invade your privacy and these athletes, like Josh Jarboe, need to understand that their actions have consequences.

Hopefully Josh Jarboe lands on his feet and plays football somewhere this upcoming year or at least goes to school. I think that he deserves another chance and that his coaches and teammates should stand behind him and say that this was just a simple mistake and that it wasn’t anything major. The kid is only 18 years old he is going to do some immature things throughout his life but a positive influence like sports can keep him occupied and away from the negative aspects of life.