Where’s Joe Alleva on the LSU Quarterback Flap?

Hiding under his desk, likely.

Louisiana State University (LSU) Athletic Director Joe Alleva’s track record of dealing with athletes and rowdy behavior is notoriously inconsistent.

Does anyone remember the Duke Lacrosse Case from the spring of 2006?

Here’s what’s happening at LSU right now.

Despite sexual assault, LSU recruited quarterback Mettenberger

LSU football coach Les Miles is not allowing the junior college transfer from Butler Community College in El Dorado, Kan., to be interviewed. LSU officials in admissions, at the women’s center and on the disciplinary review committee are either tight-lipped or silent about Mettenberger, the No. 1 junior college quarterback prospect in the nation who begins spring practice with the rest of the LSU football team on Friday as a sophomore.

Miles, who recruited Mettenberger when he was in high school, quickly began recruiting Mettenberger again last summer. Miles did so shortly after Mettenberger was kicked off the Georgia team in April 2010 after being charged in March in connection with the sexual battery of a woman in a bar in Remerton, Ga.

To be fair to Mettenberger, it appears that as tangles with the law go, it was a relatively minor transgression.

Mettenberger was arrested March 7, 2010, at Flip Flops bar in Remerton on charges of sexual battery after allegedly grabbing the breasts and buttocks of the woman. He was also charged with underage consumption of alcohol, disorderly conduct, obstruction and possession of fake identification and was jailed briefly at the Lowndes County Jail.

Contrast Alleva’s silence today with his moral outrage against demonstrably innocent men five years ago.

Joe Alleva fired Duke University’s lacrosse coach, Mike Pressler and cancelled the team’s season. Pressler’s book, “It’s Not About the Truth” describes what happened:

Alleva said the situation has gotten out of hand and they must cancel the season immediately, Pressler said. I was shocked. I responded by saying, “You promised the players to their faces there would be no more forfeitures of games unless charges were brought. What new happened? Joe, you told the players and the parents you believed their story, you believed in them, you believed that they were telling the truth. It’s all about the truth; we must stand for the truth.”

Alleva looked right at me and made the statement I’ll never forget as long as I live: “It’s not about the truth anymore,” he said. “It’s about the integrity of the university, it’s about the faculty, the city, the NAACP, the protesters, and the other interest groups.”

Herewith, correspondence from an athlete’s parent to K. C. Johnson – one the foremost chroniclers of events surrounding the lacrosse case – on more Alleva dealings in the case.

Durham-in-Wonderland – Comments and analysis about the Duke/Nifong case.

I was one of the 40 or 50 parents who were at that meeting that day. We were nervous for our sons, but we were also furious at Duke. That was the day we all realized that Duke was not on our side and was not going to do anything to protect its students. That was the day Brodhead turned his back on our sons.

When Duke forfeited that day’s game, Coach Pressler asked the parents who were in town for the game to meet with Athletic Director Alleva and Dean Wasiolek. The two of them told us that this game and the next had been forfeited as the team’s punishment for holding the party. Alleva said the “party was inconsistent with the values of Duke athletics and Duke University and is unacceptable.” He could not tell us when, or if ever, a Duke team had forfeited a game for disciplinary reasons. He could not explain why he had not forced all of the other Duke athletic teams, fraternities, and sororities which had held similar parties to forfeit their games or activities. And he refused to admit that his actions canceling the games just might make it look like Duke thought the team was guilty.

During the meeting, we pleaded with Alleva to amend his statement to say that Duke officials had met with the team captains, knew they were cooperating with the authorities, and believed they were innocent.

We are reliably told that strings were pulled at the highest levels to get Alleva out of Duke University and into a job where he wouldn’t be quizzed about the Duke Lacrosse Case any more.

Too bad for Alleva that we live here. We’ve been following the case since April of 2006 and will continue to until those who were involved in the attempted lynching are brought to justice.

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