Suspended University of Oregon football player LeGarrette Blount might play for the Ducks again, head coach Chip Kelly said Friday, reigniting the debate over Blount’s behavior following Oregon’s loss at Boise State and Kelly’s subsequent reaction.
Blount’s seasonlong suspension is now an indefinite suspension through at least the end of October. The earliest he could play again is Nov. 7 at Stanford, a week after the Ducks host Southern California in a game that projects to have major Pac-10 Conference implications.
Kelly said Blount must meet a set of unspecified “academic and behavioral” requirements to return. They are laid out in a letter signed by Blount and Kelly with input from university legal counsel.
“Discipline to me is about one thing and one thing only — behavior improvement,” said Kelly, who is in his first year as a college head coach. “It’s not about punishment. We put a better plan in place for LeGarrette’s behavior improvement.”
Kelly said he changed course after consulting several respected voices in the national sporting community, including former NFL coach Tony Dungy and UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus of Sociology Harry Edwards. Oregon athletic director Mike Bellotti and UO President Richard Lariviere endorsed the decision, while the Pac-10 Conference retained the right to review Blount’s case again before his reinstatement.
By the Stanford game, Oregon’s fall term will have been in session for more than a month, which Kelly said would provide an accurate gauge of how well Blount is meeting academic requirements.
Blount went on a postgame tirade in Boise after the Ducks’ season-opening defeat Sept. 3, punching a Broncos player who taunted him after the game ended. He tussled with a teammate who attempted to calm him down, then nearly came to blows with angry fans.
Video of the incident was replayed on television sports reports immediately afterward, and it was a popular subject of discussion among national pundits.
The next day, Kelly said Blount could continue practicing but would no longer be allowed to participate in games, effectively ending the senior running back’s collegiate career.
“I’m not going to stick my head in the sand and be a stubborn person and say, ‘I gave my word, and that’s the way it’s going to be.’ ” Kelly said Friday. “It’s not a football decision, it’s a human being decision. It’s about the individual, and he’s got a lot of things he’s got to do.”
Kelly stressed twice during a press conference Friday morning that Blount still may never play again for the Ducks.
Friday night, ESPN reported that Blount and his parents were represented by an attorney through the NCAA Alumni Association, a newly formed student-athlete advocacy group that is not affiliated with the NCAA, during a call to Bellotti on Sept. 8, four days after Blount’s suspension.
Kelly told The Register-Guard he hadn’t had any contact with the attorney.
“That had nothing to do with my decision,” Kelly said by phone Friday evening. “If someone had told me what to do with it, I’d have resigned my position. This was 100 percent my decision.”
Through a university spokesman, Bellotti also said the attorney’s participation played no role in the decision. The spokesman said university general counsel Melinda Grier was also on the call, and said Bellotti hasn’t had further contact with the attorney.
Blount, a 6-foot-2, 246-pound native of Florida, surpassed the notable benchmark of 1,000 rushing yards and set a school record with 17 rushing touchdowns as a backup in 2008, his first year with the Ducks after transferring from a junior college. He was the starter at Boise State but was held to minus-five rushing yards that night, and has been replaced in the lineup by redshirt freshman LaMichael James.
Blount apologized for his behavior in Boise moments after the incident but has been unavailable for interviews since, a policy that Kelly said remains in place. Blount submitted a letter of apology to the university community that was published in the campus Daily Emerald on Thursday.
Kelly said the letter was one element of Blount’s required course of action for earning reinstatement. The coach refused to detail other elements of the plan.
Kelly said he initially imposed a harsh penalty “so that (Blount) understood the ramifications of what was ahead of him.” But Blount began to put himself back in good graces with Kelly a day after the incident, by calling Boise State’s coach, Chris Petersen, and the player Blount punched, Byron Hout, to apologize.
Athletic department officials brokered conversations between Blount and Dungy as well as former pro basketball player Kermit Washington, who was suspended from the NBA in 1977 for punching an opponent. Then, on Sept. 15, Edwards traveled to Eugene to meet individually with Blount and with Kelly, and to speak to the entire football team.
Subsequent to his conversations with Edwards and others, Kelly said, he began to entertain the notion of offering Blount the potential for reinstatement. Their signed agreement was finalized Sept. 25.
“All I’m doing is creating an environment for him to be successful,” Kelly said. “But it’s all on him now.”
The Ducks play Washington State today at 6:15 in Autzen Stadium, making Friday’s announcement a potential distraction for the team. Kelly said he considered waiting until Oregon’s bye week Oct. 17 to make the announcement but “didn’t want this to be a secret, and then everybody thought we did some backdoor dealing.”
Bellotti has been in contact about the reversal with Lariviere, who said in a statement he “support(s) the decisions Coach Kelly has made and how he has handled this issue.”
New Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott said in a statement that “the power to reinstate rests with the Conference, and if and when the university decides to make such an appeal, the Conference will take the matter under advisement and make a decision.”
Bellotti said he has heard from UO fans and donors both supporting and opposing the athletic department’s handling of the Blount situation.
“The thing I’ve told people that don’t agree is just that, what would you do if it were your son?” said Bellotti, who was head football coach for 14 seasons prior to this year. “What would you have me do if it were your son? …
“Chip’s willingness to change his mind, I don’t think that’s a negative. I think in some ways that’s a positive.”
Kelly said he has been “encouraged” by Blount’s decision to remain at the university and practice with the football team over the last month. Prior to the season, Blount returned to Florida for the funeral of an aunt, and on Sept. 17 he became a father to newborn son LeGarrette Jr.
“They didn’t factor in, but I’m cognizant of the fact LeGarrette’s got a lot on his plate,” Kelly said. “Those things don’t justify what happened, and we never talked about that. But I know every detail of LG’s life, and he’s been through a lot in these last couple months.
“But I’m going to stick by him. Whether he makes it through this or not, I will always stick by him.”
“The flip-flop issue certainly is always going to create controversy,” Bellotti said. “The reality is, at the time he made what he felt was the very best decision. As he looked back, he decided there was an opportunity or a need to give another version of it. And not from a public standpoint, but more for the opportunity for LeGarrette and his life.
“I’m proud of the way he’s handled it. Chip is very true to what he believes. Sometimes that can get you in trouble, but I think he was very honest about his approach to this whole thing.”