November 6, 2006
Three Vols arrested, suspended
Tennessee starting RB Arian Foster and reserves S Antonio Wardlow and FB David Holbert were arrested following a fight at Good Fellas nightclub at about 3 a.m. on Saturday night/Sunday morning. All three were charged with disorderly conduct and underage consumption, while Wardlow also got tagged with public intoxication.
Police said they found people shouting at each other and fights about to break out at the scene."The officers were able to initially break up most of potential problems, however, they observed Mr. Arian Foster shoving another individual," police said.
"Shortly thereafter they found two other individuals involved in an altercation. Those individuals -- also University of Tennessee football players -- were identified as Antonio Wardlow and David Holbert. As a result of the fight and disturbance there at Good Fellas nightclub all three individuals were arrested."
Tennessee Head Coach Phil Fulmer said that he had not spoken to all three players as of his Sunday presser, so he was reserving comment.
"I'm not going to comment any further except to say that I'll deal with it swiftly and firmly and fairly with the guys," Fulmer said. "I do expect to see those guys (Sunday night). It's been a very busy day grading the film and recruiting, and I wasn't able to see all those guys."
Fulmer instituted a zero-tolerance policy during the off-season, but I'm still a little unclear on where getting arrested in a bar fight ranks on Fulmer's scale. Apparently, Phil is confused, too, otherwise we would know something under the "zero-tolerance", right??
UPDATE: Well now we know what zero-tolerance means, I suppose. The starter who was arrested, RB Arian Foster, will have a zero-tolerance penalty of two quarters. Reserve FB David Holbert will receive a zero-tolerance penalty of four quarters. Reserve S Antonio Wardlow gets a zero-tolerance penalty of two games (Arkansas & Vandy).
"The three young men who were arrested let their teammates, coaches, administration and great fans down," Fullmer said in the release. "Their behavior is an example we certainly remind them about, when immature male ego mixes with alcohol and stupidity."Two of the players arrested early Sunday during the disturbance were fighting each other, and a third was arrested for shoving another man, police said Monday.
Apparently if your a starter, the zero-tolerance is less severe. And that makes sense...why?
Comments:
TheREALUT said:
posted on November 6, 2006 12:21 PM — 141.225.112.65 — link — abuse?
I guarantee I can predict what ole phil will do. Antonio Warlaw (a backup defensive back) and David Holbert (a backup fullback) will receive harsh punishment to make a statement and Arian Foster (our starting halfback) will get Fulmer's signature "suspended indefinitely" punishment that is supposed to sound bad, but in truth only means that he'll sit out at most one game, then be reinstated for good behavior. We saw it this summer when he did the same thing with Marvin Mitchell (suspended indefinitely for being arrested but played the first game against Cal). Fulmer's zero tolerance policy is nothing more that a PR stunt to get the media off his back for last season's embarassing arrests. His lack of punishment for these reoccuring incidents is both embarassing and insulting to our program.
volstrike3 said:
posted on November 6, 2006 12:52 PM — 216.103.178.34 — link — abuse?
It is a little disappointing to hear the players are out drinking at 3am after a loss. I guess Arian could have run a lot harder agaist LSU than he did, he seems to have a little too much energy. Personally I think we are better off with Hardesty starting, Foster dances around a little too much this year.
posted on November 6, 2006 3:10 PM — link — abuse?Kevin Donahue said:
@C-Dogg - Just being equal opportunity. Some people think we pick on Miami for their escapades, but we try to hit 'em all - especially when a starter is involved on a top 15 team.
Wes said:
posted on November 6, 2006 4:43 PM — 63.166.216.16 — link — abuse?
Fulmer usually tries to talk to players before passing judgment. Otherwise you could have another team's fans make up bogus charges to get players booted. The police were in on this, so the charges must have some merit. I expect all of these players to be suspended for at least the Arkansas game, probably through the end of the season.
He let Marvin Mitchell off easy since the guy had been in the program 4 years with no incidents. Mitchell received the lightest punishment of anyone this season, and I would say 3-4 years of good behavior should build up a little credit, unless he's out committing a felony.
posted on November 6, 2006 5:54 PM — link — abuse?
UPDATE: Well now we know what zero-tolerance means, I suppose. The starter who was arrested, RB Arian Foster, will have a zero-tolerance penalty of two quarters. Reserve FB David Holbert will receive a zero-tolerance penalty of four quarters. Reserve S Antonio Wardlow gets a zero-tolerance penalty of two games (Arkansas & Vandy).
"The three young men who were arrested let their teammates, coaches, administration and great fans down," Fullmer said in the release. "Their behavior is an example we certainly remind them about, when immature male ego mixes with alcohol and stupidity."
Two of the players arrested early Sunday during the disturbance were fighting each other, and a third was arrested for shoving another man, police said Monday.
Apparently if your a starter, the zero-tolerance is less severe. And that makes sense...why?
posted on November 6, 2006 6:17 PM — link — abuse?
I forget who, but somebody prominent or a starter got suspended by Fulmer for a half in the Peach against Clemson.
VOLPIMP said:
posted on November 6, 2006 8:32 PM — 208.0.27.10 — link — abuse?
I say suspend them all for the rest of the season, it won't hurt the team anyway, we have no running game to speak of so Foster and Holbert are irrelevant. Wardlow is a special teams guy and a backup, give the kids who are serious about their role a chance to shine. Mooka, we must have watched a different game, I didn't see LSU dominate anybody, it was a good, close hard fought game, you don't claim domination when you have to come from behind to win. That would be like us claiming domination last year when we won, when in reality the Tigers handed it to us in the first half. A smart D coordinator wouldn't have let them drive down the field like they did, Chavis as usual had no answer for a QB with average speed running the ball, Carolina did the same thing and Chavis never fixed the problem, that's why he is always doomed to be an assistant, he can't adjust. Sure against the lower tier teams he can call a good game when talent is lopsided, but against the big boys it's always a struggle. You won't see any school knocking on his door for a Head Coaching job, because they see it too. I look for the Hogs to run all over us this Saturday, they will be the best running team we've faced, and we already saw what Air Force did to us, unless he has a gameplan we haven't seen it could get pretty ugly.
posted on November 6, 2006 9:07 PM — link — abuse?
@IrishJT- If Fulmer didn't have a "zero-tolerance" policy, it wouldn't be nearly half as funny.
volstrike3 said:
posted on November 7, 2006 12:21 AM — 75.20.190.14 — link — abuse?
I am glad to hear the penalties were swift and severe. I am sure the rest of the team will learn something from this.
Phil, why even pretend, just say that your a football coach and not their daddy. As long as they play well that is all anyone really cares about. Any coach who says differently is lying to themselves.
David said:
posted on November 7, 2006 7:46 PM — 70.112.218.104 — link — abuse?
Mack Brown suspended Tarell Brown (CB starter) for the Ohio State game which IMO played a big impact in their loss. Besides their offensive struggle and bad luck their secondary was a big reason why they lost that game.
The charges were later dropped but Mack still suspended him for the biggest game of the year.
This is why you don't see thugs at the real UT. Mack won't put up with it any self-respecting coach shouldn't either. Complete BS on this "suspension based on value" crap.
PoeJoe said:
posted on November 9, 2006 7:04 AM — 130.36.62.140 — link — abuse?
There really is no surprise here, the win-at-all-cost approach is alive and well @ UT. Sadly, this is the norm across the country throughout and our society. I certainly wouldn't expect Phil Fulmer to do the right thing and set an example...I just hope he doesn't get the chance to embarass himself and the University of Tennessee by announcing again that the program will not tolerate errant behavior.
volstrike3 said:
posted on November 9, 2006 5:15 PM — 216.103.178.34 — link — abuse?
I am not trying to stick up for the players but the incident is not as bad it first indicated. The altercation was between wardlow and holbert with Foster trying to break it up. They were all drinking so the punishment was for underage drinking and that seems about right. Anyone that has played competitve sports knows that these types of things happen.
HogFan1 said:
posted on November 11, 2006 12:27 AM — 69.254.180.189 — link — abuse?
Alright, well this doesn't surprise me much. That sounds just like Tennessee. Bunch of thugs and criminals on that team. I wouldn't care if they killed somebody. But all three players who did the same thing, should get the same kind of punishment. But Foster only gets two quarters, while the other two get at least a game. Sounds like favortism to me. So if you are good, you should get a pass. Doesn't sound right to me. But even with Tennessee cheating to get their best back to play, the Hogs are going to kick their butts all over the field. Woo Pig Sooie baby. HogFan1 out.
TN TW said:
posted on November 11, 2006 4:56 PM — 70.19.49.15 — link — abuse?
I agree with volstrike's initial comment.
more upsetting that they were out getting loaded especially after Foster's lackadaisical play.they may, indeed, be thugs, but you go out on campus as a high profile player after a tough loss in a bar with a bunch of drunk rednecks and there's going to be problems. You aren't necessarily a bunch of thugs if you have to deal with a bunch of crap. Again, they shouldn't have been there. But we are talking about twenty year olds who are out in public being twenty year olds.
That doesn't put our team in the penal league with Erickson's Miami.
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pip said:
posted on November 6, 2006 11:38 AM — 70.232.41.193 — link — abuse?well, i hope they don't susspend them.. because if they do the vols will try to use that as an excuse when we beat them in Fayetteville this saturday :)