My whole point in this is that none of us have any idea of what transpired after the event. We don't know Mixon's demeanor. Did he act defiant? Did he humbly acknowledge for perhaps the first time that he had a serious problem? We don't know who said/did what and with what attitude they said/did it. I know nothing of Mixon's background and what advantages or disadvantages that may have given him in life.
It's easy to say OU should have done this or that. And I might agree with some of the "they really should have done this or that." But we are only on the outside looking in.
Are we looking at an isolated incident in which it may have been tricky to determine the best course of action? Or this a systemic problem that involves multiple players over the years and an administration that is complicit through its negligence like the Baylor situation?
If they helped a young man get his life together then that's great.
If he hasn't actually turned a corner then we will find out. The parking attendant thing is a serious warning light.
It would have struck me as appropriate if he had had a year of eligibility taken away from him by OU. But then .... I have no idea what was going down behind the scenes.
I've been reading this thread and it looks to me as if you're really nitpicking on the mentality element of Mixon and what he was thinking, temperament, etc. What was going on behind the scenes? He punched a girl in the face with his fist. She didn't look like a black belt to me where he seriously had to defend himself. You're giving him too much leeway to wiggle out of.
The point is, what difference does it make? Because the fact is he hauled off and punched, using his fist, a girl in the face breaking it in four places-and the extra point is, it was all over words. Yes, she struck him twice but he obviously instigated the incident by walking up to the table.
Also, as he begins walking away without anything physical, she turns on him so he obviously said something to piss her off. And after she pushes him in the chest, he spits on her and that's when she punched him before getting punched.
What difference does it make what his past was like or what he was thinking? He obviously lacks a certain maturity and discipline to be able to completely walk away from that situation.
I think the bigger question is, regardless if they knew each other previously, but how much punishment is enough for crimes/offenses by college athletes?
How long should someone pay for something? Does he deserve to have his entire college career taken away from him anywhere in the country? It would seem the NCAA would have to make that a rule for certain offenses or else he could have a right to sue over collusion or something like that.
Again, the question is, how much punishment is enough for certain things? One solution should be that along with legal penalties and probation by the law, the NCAA should have a collegiate probation where if a person commits any more offenses while on a college career length of probation, he should be mandatory kicked off that team and out of that school and let him reapply somewhere else. Forcing that person to start over again and probably stripping any athletic eligibility from him in any college. That would certainly be a good rule taking a Stoops-type decision out of coaches hands.
