Thinks EMCC has received unfair portion of punishment
I fully support East Mississippi Community College in every way that I can.
It concerns me The Dispatch wants to turn on our region’s community college. It reminds me of a Bible story I learned in Sunday School many years ago. John 8, this chapter shares an important story about Jesus, the Pharisees, and an adulterous woman.
The specific verse I’m referring to is Verse 7. I won’t bore you with the details, but I do believe in second chances. I feel you should uplift and support EMCC instead of bashing her and questioning the integrity of her leaders.
Since Coach Stephens has been head coach, several athletes have been granted a second chance there. Bo Wallace, Chad Kelly, and most recently De’Andre Johnson headline the list.
De’Andre made his mistake at a bar by retaliating on a female who was clearly the aggressor in their incident. I don’t condone his actions, but can understand why he did what he did. He is currently serving out his punishment.
In reference to Coach Stephens and the game administrator, I haven’t read or heard anything on the referee’s punishment from their altercation in which he was also an aggressor. Coach Stephens served his punishment. The game official should have received the harsher of the two punishments.
This brings us to this past Thursday night’s event. The game administrators didn’t take control of the game prior to its start like they should have. If you view the whole 10-minute event, I’m positive you’ll see an EMCC player getting beat up on the sidelines by Trojan players and their coaches and the referees not doing anything about it.
The players had to decide on participating in the state playoffs without a severely injured teammate or defend their teammate and not participate in the state playoffs. They chose what was best for DJ Law instead of what was best for the Lions football team.
In an earlier opinion, your paper commented on their winning as being unsportsmanlike. I want to bring your attention to years past. Where were you when the Lions were getting beat like that? Where were the calls for the reformation of the rules? There were none. Now that the proverbial rabbit has the gun, the hunters and spectators want to yell foul. Secondly, the NJCAA has made it a necessary evil to win big in order to play into the national championship game.
This has been a bad season all the way around for the MACJC. Co-Lin used an ineligible player to defeat EMCC in game two. The MACJC official attacked Coach Stephens at homecoming. Delta (2-7) does everything they can to terrorize the team and provoke them (8-1) into their eventual reaction in the last game. I attended a total of 7 Mississippi JUCO games this year and there were issues in all of them. This is not totally an EMCC issue, it’s a systemic issue that the MACJC has to deal with as well.
I would like the answers to the following questions: Where is the leadership of the MACJC and what are they going to do? How could the referee, who is supposed to be held to a higher standard, possibly get the same punishment as the coach he attacked? How can a team with nothing to lose get the same punishment as a national championship contender when they provoked it? What is the MACJC going to do to ensure that the outcome of this type of game doesn’t continue in the future?
The MACJC has to set a precedence in this matter or it will continue. As it stands, EMCC will effectively get a four-game suspension, while MDCC will only get a two-game suspension when they deserve not to play a single game next year.
Scooba Tech is not blameless in these situations, but the other parties need to be held to the same standard and punished according to their actions, actions which led to these incidents occurring.
Willard “Chip” Wells
Jackson
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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