Hash browns in Athens

http://www.ajc.com/sports/uga/uga-soccer-player-charged-1367143.html
WOW!

Glad they could include her picture in uniform, you know, since she was clearly representing the team at the time

Excruciatingly embarrassing, I am sure. Impulsive and stupid. And now to live with it going forward. Good thing we're all human and can understand this.

Reminds me of the Dayton, Oh area wrestler that qualified for the HS state championships (for the 1st time), and could not participate because he was suspended from his HS, for attempting to steal a chocolate chip cookie.

The counter to this would be that one of the responsibilities that comes with the privilege of being a student-athlete is that they are always representing their team and university.

I have heard that the Georgia police have been operating a tater tot sting operation around the university. This is only the first of the many stories to come from TaterGate.

Holly, Taters Spudman,
Back to the Tatter Cave! This seems like a Spud over kill for some food? Arrested, and banned from eating on campus, REALLY? I wonder what her meal pan Is like. Its seems like she should have to serve Hash Brown for BREAKFAST, for a year? If you take, give back? SH has to be EMMMMMMbarrassed! Sounds like the Cafeteria Police thought there was a Irish Potato famine again???
Quick go to the store and LOAD UP!!!!

It's easy to be sanctimonious about, and certainly it's true to a point. But if she was winning an academic award they'd be running a picture of her in "civilian" clothing and she'd be a student first, athlete second.

It seems that's reversed in this case due to her "special crime." It happens, but I think we ought to buck the trend on it, especially when her crime/arrest wouldn't even be news if she wasn't an athlete. She's already being publicly humiliated (and rightly so, to a point) because of her bad judgement in a way that a non-athlete wouldn't be (I mean, do they have a big "crimes about $1" section in the AJC every week?), picturing her in uniform is a lazy and nasty move.

I'm giving away my age, but I'm definitely wondering if she'll have to sit on the Group W bench and fill out some forms . . .

1) WHo cares how much was stolen, theft is theft.

2) If an athlete makes news and they are just using a headshot they use the athletic pic, now matter what the news is for.

3) One of the first things I was taught as a college student-athlete was that you are always representing your team and your school. Even at home in the summer you will be identified as "so and so, soccer player at State U."

What they should have done is because she's okay with stuffing food in her pants (and putting it back on the counter for other people to eat!!), for one week her coach and teammates get to decide what she eats for breakfast and instead of using a tray she has to put it all in her pants before she eats it.

Oatmeal with Honey?

No qualifier. It's true, period. These are the times we live in and it is the reality whether you want to accept it or not. Student-athletes have lost scholarships and programs have landed in big trouble because of pictures on Facebook. Student-athletes are always on stage, like it or not.

Probably so, but only because the picture was provided to the media for that purpose. Her athletic profile picture was probably the most easily accessible photo to obtain.

1. You're equating Northwestern's drunken hazing scenes with this? I mean, those kids got punished as athletes for what they did at a team-related function. Certainly if the program wants to punish Ms. Hash Brown, I'm all for it. I don't remember ANY media running the Northwestern kids' head shots, now that I think about it.

2. Like I said, running her soccer headshot was lazy and nasty. SOP? Some places (small town weeklies?). I thought AJC was a bigger time newspaper than that. Evidently, I stand corrected. I KNOW that when a University of Maryland football player was arrested, the stories didn't run a picture of the guy at all - I guess WaPo/Sporting News are bigger time than AJC.

Sorry to hear this about Carli, she's one of the better players on the team.

I can't be too hard on her, though, because I have distinct, even fond, memories of running across the street from my dorm to the Bulldog Room (yes, the same one) to snag packs of condiments and crackers because I couldn't afford (or was too lazy) to go to the grocery store (also my sophomore year, must be something about that age). I'm real high and mighty about theft now, but I had to go through a period of doing stupid crap (like above) before I figured it out.

PS #1 - They also serve a mean-ass grilled cheese.

PS #2 - The AJC doesn't give a crap about soccer, especially college. They're laughing their asses off over this and that's why they ran it. Unfortunately it's one of their most-viewed stories, so that will only encourage them. Ask these jerks who won the W-League last year and all you'll get back are cricket sounds.

No that assumption is all on you. There are plenty of athletes besides the ones at Northwerstern who have caused problems for themselves and/or their program in the world of college athletics for what has come into the public eye one way or another.

If you don't want to accept the fact that SAs are always in the public eye that's fine, but it is not what is the reality for them, their coaches or their administrators. It doesn't necessarily make it right but I know that it is something that most, if not all, schools preach to their SAs. They can very much be targets for anyone who wants to take advantage of anything that is or could be interpreted as up to no good. This includes local media figures who, believe or not, don't always have the best interest of the SA or school at heart.

I never commented on the journalistic ethics or laziness, just throwing out a possible reason for the use of that particular picture.

Nope, you just puked up pablum. "The kid's responsible for her actions and subject to heightened scrutiny from media with it's own agenda." Everybody gets those warnings, and periodically, shockingly, they show the kind of poor judgement that is an occasional part of late adolescence. I'm shocked and dismayed, I tell you! (don't believe me?)

However when a large news organization goes the lazy route to sell papers, discredit women athletes, whatever, I think they should be criticized pretty harshly (more than a kid who's going to be disciplined by at least three different bodies for the same offense whether you jump on them or not). When a small town weekly with a part-time sports guy takes the easy route, that's one thing. But AJC has a full staff and the seem to go with athletes in uniform for these stories (at least with the guys they go for action shots instead of head shots) - they SHOULD be called on it.

You're right, you didn't comment on that.

Call it whatever you want, it's not meant to be some trite platitude. The media by and large does create this culture and society in general does eat it up. If that's pablum for you, so be it.

You commented that you thought this was overblown and in poor taste. My entire point was that there is a flip side to that with absolutely no statement of personal opinion on either side of the argument, it was meant as a devil's advocate type statement.

College age SAs are going to make decisions typical of that age from time to time, but the fact is the media does scrutinize what SAs do more so than the rest of the demographic. It doesn't make it right, but it's the way it is and coaches across the country know that any day something that seems very silly could cast an unfavorable light upon their program. Stolen hash browns stashed down someone's pants probably-hopefully-dies away pretty quickly, but sometimes things get out of hand and it doesn't work out that way.

Absolutely.

I really feel for this young woman. She impulsively did something stupid, but for her age and millieu not particularly uncommon. (Thousands of college students purloin food from dining halls every day.) Wrong?...of course! Should she be held accountable so as to learn a valuable lesson?...of course! Should this incident have been embarrassing and humiliating in public when she was caught red-handed?... no question! (It's part of the learning experience for someone this age.) Should there be some consequential follow-up by the university and/or her team?... Yes! (Especially if this is part of an addictive pattern she needs to address.)

But being hauled off to the county jail and booked is such overkill both for practical (personnel, resources, and tax payer) reasons and for ethical reasons. And national news coverage with photo is pretty ridiculous too.

If this were your daughter who otherwise was achieving and being successful and learning how to be an adult, how would you want such an incident handled?

Enough is enough. All of this discussion on this thread hopefully should be over. By now everyone's had a chance to weigh in. Can we stop beating this horse now and let this young woman have some privacy?

Bad Jocks.com decided to use a very different picture. I actually feel bad for the kid now. But she will be getting a bag of frozen tater tots in the mail.

http://badjocks.com/2012/02/29/univ...cking-hash-browns-in-her-pants-carli-shultis/

.......Sorry I posted this. any chance the admin can delete this?

It's too bad isn't it? I was wondering if she hid the hash browns because she didn't want anyone to see her eating them (They wouldn't exactly be on the approved menu list). Whatever the reason it was stupid, but she has more than paid for it now.

I've noticed that I'm generally in the same line of thinking with you on this board, but don't get this one. What photo did you want them to run? The options are either run her UGA headshot, her police mugshot, look her up on facebook and get a random photo, or don't post a photo at all.

You mentioned Maryland had a story about a football player being arrested and didn't run a photo. I consider Maryland very lucky then. Athletes at the colleges around where I live unfortunately get arrested a lot, and everytime it's either the police mugshot (I'd estimate 90% of the male athletes have their police mugshots posted in the newspaper story online as well as all over the message boards), or the school headshot.

It's a shame that this story made the news, and it's a bigger shame that she tried to steal in the first place. But in my days we were all told that from Day 1 to Year 4, everything you do is representative of the university and the team. If I would have or if my kid ends up getting in trouble while playing for a University, I fully expect the mugshot to be broadcast and to be affiliated with the team they play for. It's the price we pay to be role models in America.

Most national papers would've either a) given this story a pass or b) run it responsibly (what $1 theft includes a mugshot picture?) or c) be jerks, but if you want a picture, you get someone to go take her picture (you know, an employee taking a professional picture - like this from the AJC when football players assaulted someone

Newspapers charge for content because their employees generate it.

I'm not complaining that badjocks.com ran a photo they got off facebook - but they don't claim to be a source for responsible journalism that we should take seriously, either.

As for the role-model thing, I don't think her role as a role model is proportional to this article. Maybe that's the best way to try to add some context to what I already said. There's a lot of daylight between saying what she did is wrong (of course), and seeing these articles as a fair response to her $1 hash brown caper (you don't think they'd have covered up a comparable move by a football player? I do!) Some sprints or cones or whatever seems MORE than adequate.