AJC: Dennis Andrews no longer onthe Team

[PBR549]

No coach wants to kick a kid off the team but there is a protocol in place for rules violations and we have to trust the coach to do what's best for the team and the kid.

 

[00Burdell]

I feel bad for Andrews. GT will be fine - GT will always be ok but its the kids that make GT what it is so I can't really separate the two.

I'm glad/lucky I didn't get kicked off or kicked out every time I made a mistake. Best we can hope for is that DA takes this bitter lesson and turns it into a long-term positive.

 

[Boomergump]

It doesn't matter about the validity of the rule. The only thing that matters is that there IS a rule that goes along with being associated with this group of people. He knew the rule. He agreed to the rule. Then the broke the rule three different times. This isn't about an organization jumping out of the bushes and surprising somebody with their unexpected enforcement of some cryptic code. You can argue all day long about whether it is a good rule or not. I get that. However, you can't say that Dennis didn't understand the rules nor agree to them. I wish Dennis the best, but he knew what he was doing and, on some level, he was putting his selfish desires above the team's needs.

The marijuana legality argument is really not applicable here as far as I am concerned. Who knows, there may be a team that allows marijuana smoking. Hopefully, they have a scholly available for any of the plethora of violators.

Besides, nobody really knows if that is the case here with Dennis anyway. There is a lot of assuming going on. There are rules for every team. He broke them. He is no longer a part of the team.

 

[mndojckt]

Has Josh Clemons signed with anybody?

Mississippi College

 

[Skeptic]

I think what RLR and even myself are trying to say that we don't really have this stigma on MJ use. Accordingly, as long as you are performing in the classroom, grinding at practice/games, I don't care what plant material you smoke in your private time. I get that it's a team rule, but MJ didn't appear to be harming DA. I do not know the specifics, so I could be totally wrong. I'm sure it could affect a player(just like alcohol), but that would show in the classroom and and at practice/games.

Just my 2 cents. I just don't care about it, it doesn't change my opinion of a person if they use MJ. I don't think alcohol is against team rules if you are of age, and I think that is a far more destructive drug. MJ will be legal in 10 years and we will look back on this and say it shouldn't have mattered.

Flame away.

I don't have any desire to flame away, as you suggest. But: for all personal opinions, philosophy, modern thinking, whatever, it makes no never mind in the state of Georgia. I don't live there any more and had to Google it, but from a cursory look only medical marijuana, prescribed, is permitted. So to possess, use or sell pot is against the law, subject to penalties ranging from not very much to draconian, depending on the amount, and where you get caught with it. Have them nail you -- and I am taking poetic liberties; I don't mean you personally -- on a sidewalk by a school, and you could get put away for up to 10 years with hefty fines that will ruin the rest of your life paying off after you are convicted of a misdemeanor or felony .(Better get one of those high end engineering degrees if you do that, and then pray. Start with praying that your employer does not conduct drug tests.)

It doesn't matter what Oregon does or whoever legalizes it. It is illegal in Georgia. I have never done pot, as my illegal drug of choice in my younger days was whiskey. Frankly it always scared me, all that Cheech and Chong parody aside. I could stop with the booze but had no idea what pot would do to me. (And there is no funnier movie scene that them chugging down the road with pot smoke boiling out both front windows. Cracks me up.)

One of my former employers had a strict no drug policy and required drug screening to be hired. What I didn't understand was that when an interview was scheduled, sometimes 2-3 weeks out for out-of-state applicants, they would show up, ace the interview, and fail the drug screen. I think we can agree there is a serious issue of judgment there. But as to whether it affects job performance, I know any number of companies that require any driver of a company car or driving a personal car on company business to go immediately for drug screening, even for a fender bender. Fail it, they're gone. The reason is simple, and it is not hard-hearted employers, or in Tech's case, coaches. It is liability. You want to explain to a person injured in an accident with your employee why he is allowed to smoke pot as a personal choice, because it clearly does affect judgment and reflexes. Otherwise, why do it? Then try to explain all that to a jury looking at actual and punitive damages, that you knew he had a pot issue but it was okay per company policy. What you call that claimant after that is, "Hello, partner."

Pot is against the law, privately or publicly.

Actions have consequences. Whatever happened at Tech, Johnson gave Andrews a second chance to stop doing whatever he was doing. What part of that didn't he understand?

 

[chrsw003]

Good thing they don't kick off everyone on the team who smokes, or we might not have a team. And that goes to basically every BCS team. Liked Andrews and thought he was gonna have a big year, but I think we will be fine.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

I don't care if the rule is don't chew with your mouth open, if you know the consequences, you're taking your chances when you decide to break it.

 

[Skeptic]

I don't care if the rule is don't chew with your mouth open, if you know the consequences, you're taking your chances when you decide to break it.

Yep, and doubters need to decide if they want a coach who applies his rules, consistently and evenly across the board, or one who changes with the wind, and let the players try to figure out what he will do next. I always wanted to play for the former.

 

[bigtechfan67]

Everyone must have accountability, whether you are a starter, freshman, or senior, cpj has a standard he is not the first good player to be dismissed. A backs don't have to worry about the mesh as much. It's a team sport for a reason.
GO JACKETS

 

[cyptomcat]

If your fight is for marijuana legalization, you are not gonna win it fighting your college coach about it. That's not the time and place for that.

Play your game, get your degree, fight the fight, not the other way around.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Fwiw Georgia has no law legalizing medical marijuana.

Whatever the reason he was suspended, I wish him well and hope he overcomes this situation. Sometimes part of growing (up or otherwise) comes from overcoming our mistakes.

 

[AE 87]

I hope he graduates this summer. Does anyone know if he's on track?

 

[augustabuzz]

Good thing they don't kick off everyone on the team who smokes, or we might not have a team. And that goes to basically every BCS team. Liked Andrews and thought he was gonna have a big year, but I think we will be fine.

I'm under the impression that this is an Institute rule very much like the third time pulling a 1.7 for the semester.

 

[Chas_Jacket]

one issue people seem to be overlooking is that a month ago, the depth chart was issued and Dennis was not on the two deep. His response seems to have been to break team rules for a 2nd (3rd) time. This indicates to me that there may have been an ongoing issue. None of us know the actual reason for his dismissal. Best of luck to Dennis on his future

 

[alaguy]

Kickoff to the time of year when you don't want to open any newspaper or Tech site because the news will almost always be bad from now until the first game.

isn't that the TRUTH

 

[iceeater1969]

Latest year I hope jbh would be a break out year and this year I wanted DA to breakout. Teams and companies are separated by the slightest margin. Sure hope we keep improving in off field player support - we are better but need to keep working at it. Lots of top teams are having much more trouble (they just reload).
Wish dennis Andrews God Speed.

 

[LibertyTurns]

I try to avoid political bickering on here because it just gets me nuked, but I'm chiming in here. A couple of months ago a nice clean-cut 18yo close friend of ours was struggling over the decision to enlist in the USMC or go to college first. He's driving down the main drag here on his way to one of his 2 jobs after practice was over & a fine upstanding MJ smoker who's pretty well stoned runs out in front of his car while he's driving the 45mph speed limit. He swerves to miss him but catches the kid with his left fender killing him while the car careens off the right shoulder and into a fairly sizable ditch.

Now he's kinda jacked in the head with nightmares of the incident, he's being sued by the mother of the "victim", he can't leave the area until this mess is adjudicated (no time soon) so his immediate life plans are screwed- no Corps, no college. He has to figure out how to get the remaining credits to graduate as he missed too much class to walk the stage with his peers this past week, he's injured & although he had insurance he's now got medical bills that exceed his coverage and he's run out of money, he may never re-qualify physically for the Corps and least significantly his car is totaled & of course like many teenagers the $$ put into it far exceed the book value. Everything he saved for college is now gone, he lost the equivalent of Ga's Hope scholarship because he didn't graduate, plus his family has lost much of their life savings ptting him back together.

I'm sure DA's issues are not nearly this significant, but let's not flippantly dismiss things we all want to write off as insignficant because we personnally rationalized in our minds why a certain type of illegal behavior is not all that bad. Sometimes those innocent little transgressions turn out to be not so innocent. I hate to say it but this has me reconsidering many of my libertarian viewpoints. I'm sure the "vicitm's" MJ usage was no big deal to his friends and family, right up until the day he died with a nice buzz on or whatever they call it.

 

[CHE90]

I think it's a bad situation. And when we recruit 17/18 year old kids to be a part of our team, we should do everything we can to support them. Should we turn a blind eye? No. But should we abandon a player when he's in the wrong? I don't know. Again, I apologize for taking too hard of a stance. I don't know enough details about our program or this situation. And, I think GT and CPJ are highly respectable characters. So, as a fan, I should give them the benefit of the doubt. I just don't share the sense of justice and righteousness in losing a player. Maybe it's the only way. Maybe it is fair. But at the end of the day, it's a bad situation for Dennis Andrews. And as of yesterday, Dennis Andrews was part of the GT family. I guess it will just take sometime for me to accept that he's no longer part of that family. I hope he can redeem himself from this mistake. I hope he grows from this. I'm sure everyone here shares these wishes. Go Jackets.

My understanding of these offenses, if it was smoking "a little weed", is that you have 3 offenses and then you are out. So I highly doubt we "abandoned" him.

 

[jeffgt14]

We should just start linking the thread to the last player kicked off the team for weed so we don't have this same continuous argument with the same points every time.

 

[thwgjacket]

The sad part is that DA let his teammates down. We can argue all we want to about weed but the fact is, it's against the law and team policy. Just follow the rules. College Athletics are about teaching kids values and lessons in life, making them better men. DA, and a lot of others need to learn that if you want to succeed in life there are certain rules you have to follow whether you like them or not.

Maybe he needs help, I hope he gets it. It took me some time to realize I had to follow the rules I didn't like too. Hope he graduates and makes millions.