Offensive Linemen

The football team at Texas A&M-Commerce had a little extra-curricular meeting last month. They got together to steal every copy of the East Texan, the campus newspaper, in an attempt to keep a story about teammates being arrested on drug charges. Two thousand papers were removed from machines and kiosks, in what athletic director Carlton Cooper referred to as “an error in judgment.” The editor of the East Texan, James Bright, estimated the loss at eleven hundred dollars. “I’m proud of my players for doing that,” coach Guy Morriss said, according to an incident report. “This was the best team building exercise we have ever done.”
This begs the question: What other team building exercises has coach Morriss run his boys through? A partial list might include testing nine volt batteries with their tongues, phone-booth stuffing, goldfish swallowing, jumping sharks on water skis, stapling body parts together, rush-hour bungee-jumping, trying to pass a bipartisan health care bill. With all of these options, why would stealing copies of a free campus newspaper be such an effective motivator?
An officer notified Cooper that players appeared to be involved, and the athletic director expressed concern because he “didn’t think they were smart enough to do this on their own,” according to the incident report. Who could the criminal mastermind behind these thefts be? Coach Morriss is 5-5 after one season at Texas A&M-Commerce. He was 27-54 as head coach for two seasons at Kentucky and five at Baylor. With a record like that, one wonders if the coach might need a little help pulling off this scam.