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Football Coach Proud That His Players Stole Newspapers

Mar 2, 2010 – 5:00 PM
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Michael David Smith

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What's the best way to react if a newspaper prints an article you don't like? Maybe call the newsroom to complain? Write a letter to the editor? If the article is really egregious, possibly even sue the newspaper for libel?

If you're a reasonable person, those are all within the range of reasonable reactions. If you're Guy Morriss, the football coach at Division II Texas A&M-Commerce, there's a different way to react to unfavorable newspaper coverage: Steal as many copies of the newspaper as you can.

After The East Texan, the student newspaper at Texas A&M-Commerce, published an article headlined, "A&M-Commerce football players arrested in drug bust," some A&M-Commerce football players stole a bunch of copies of the paper. And Morriss says he's cool with that.

"I am proud of my players for doing that," Morriss said. "This was the best team building exercise we have ever done."

Morriss claims that it wasn't actually stealing because The East Texan is distributed for free on the A&M-Commerce campus. Unfortunately for Morriss, people are only entitled to one free copy. If you want more than one copy, you have to pay 25 cents. If you take more than one paper without paying 25 cents, you've stolen it. And if you take bundles of papers just because you don't like an article, you deserve to be prosecuted for it.

When that was all explained to Morriss, he said, "Then I guess I will be the first one out of the door in handcuffs."

Morriss, who was previously the head coach at Kentucky and Baylor, fancies himself and his players as tough guys who are above the pipsqueaks who run the student newspaper. Let's hope the local police and prosecutor show him otherwise.

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