Kobe and Druck
I wasn’t even going to bother with the Kobe Bryant case, until one of Eric McErlain’s commenters began to analyze the legal/political logistics of the case.
Then I started having flashbacks… to the summer of 1999.
Michael Vick-era Tech fans don’t know him at all, and some older Tech fans may not remember much. But quarterback Jim Druckenmiller may have been the player most responsible for getting Tech to a position where VT could compete for a recruit like Vick, and then make the jump into the brightest part of the national spotlight. Druckenmiller took a team with a modest two-game bowl streak (1993 Independence win over Indiana, post-1994 Gator mauling by Tennessee) and piloted them to two straight Big East championships, getting us to the 1995 Sugar Bowl win over Texas (sealing Tech’s first-ever national top-10 finish) and a post-1996 Orange Bowl appearance against Nebraska. With Druck under center, Tech beat Miami for the first time ever in 1995, and repeated the feat in 1996. He led a tremendous comeback in the 1995 UVa game at Charlottesville, and then beat them again in 1996. He was drafted in the first round of the 1997 NFL draft by the San Francisco 49ers.
Unfortunately, that was the peak of his career. As it turned out, Druck was a classic case of having “a million-dollar arm, but a 10-cent head.” Niners GM Bill Walsh lost patience with him, ordered him buried at the end of the bench, and eventually traded him to Jimmy Johnson’s Miami Dolphins. Then things got worse.
In April 1999, Druckenmiller was accused of rape by a female Tech student who he met during a night of partying back in Blacksburg a month earlier. As it turned out, the sex had been consensual, but both had been extremely drunk; the girl apparently panicked when she realized what she had done, and accused Druckenmiller of rape. It took a Montgomery County jury one hour of deliberations to acquit him. What Druckenmiller did was stupid, but not criminal.
One hour is barely enough time to go through the formalities and reach a verdict. TSL’s Will Stewart lashed out at the prosecutors for bringing such a weak case to court, before being politely told that he should have kept his mouth shut.
Although we don’t know much at all about the facts of the Kobe situation, the link I see here is that both cases absolutely had to go to trial — as much for the accused’s protection as for the victim’s. Even if Kobe Bryant is found innocent as Jim Druckenmiller was, the facts are sufficiently confused that any sort of pre-emptive drop of charges or dismissal of the case would serve no one’s purposes. The (alleged) victim wouldn’t get a day in court, and the accused would live under a cloud of suspicion that he had been let off because of his status as a star athlete.
If Kobe is guilty, he can hang for all I care. But if he’s innocent of the crime with which he’s been charged, the case needs to be pursued to the full extent of the law, leaving him fully clear of that charge.
And guilty only of stupidity, just like Druck.
19 July 2003 / 3 Comments / Tags: basketball, football