COMMENTARY

Poor choices cloud Green-Beckham’s future

Dorial Green-Beckham took to social media late last week to beg the world to avoid any rush to judgment about him for his most recent brush with the law.

Too late. Way too late.

Missouri’s uniquely gifted sophomore wide receiver with a presumptive multimillion-dollar NFL future has already taken care of that for us. In his brief two seasons in Columbia, Green-Beckham has presented us with ample evidence to convict him at the very least of mind-numbing lousy judgment and repeated self-destructive nonsense.

The only question that remains is whether there is anyone in Green-Beckham’s life responsible enough to make him finally understand the severity of his serial stupidity.

For the second time in 15 months, Green-Beckham’s college football career has been scarred by another entirely preventable drug-related arrest. However you feel about the debate over the legality of marijuana, and regardless of your level of outrage over the dog-bites-man news that a college kid seems to enjoy smoking a little weed, all of that is beside the point.

Since we don’t live in either Colorado or Washington state, marijuana use and possession are violations of state and federal law. Because he was dumb enough to put himself in this predicament, Green-Beckham finds his future in the capricious hands of the state’s court system to determine his innocence or guilt after this latest arrest last Friday night in his hometown of Springfield.

Green-Beckham, 20, and two friends were detained on suspicion of felony distribution of a controlled substance after Springfield police smelled marijuana in their Jeep Cherokee during a traffic stop. During the arrest, officers found about a pound of marijuana and assorted drug paraphernalia in the vehicle.

That’s fairly serious business, because if charges are filed on this class C felony, Green-Beckham would not only be immediately suspended from the Missouri football team while awaiting trial, but he could face the possibility of a conviction that could lead to jail time.

He will now spend the next three to six months sweating out the state’s investigation, unsure of what the outcome could be.

I personally don’t care if Green-Beckham wants to smoke an entire cannabis tree in the privacy of his own apartment or dorm room. He wouldn’t be the first or last college kid to do that.

What does seem to escape Green-Beckham is this one indisputable fact: He is not an ordinary college kid.

He is a star football player. He is a kid with the potential to become an NFL first-round draft pick. He is a kid whose future is dependent on pro scouts and general managers who might put character “red flags” on his evaluation reports, knocking him from a certain first-round grade to the second, third or fourth round. Those downgrades can cost millions of dollars.

I can’t imagine someone at Mizzou hasn’t already had that conversation with him. I know Gary Pinkel has disciplined him at least once for the first indiscretion in 2012.

Clearly, Green-Beckham didn’t listen. He has spent his entire young adult life wrapped in this bubble where he’s this larger-than life character named DGB, who is cheered every Saturday afternoon by 70,000 Mizzou loyalists. Sometimes that noise can be so deafening you can’t hear the sane voices trying to offer a more useful message to an impressionable kid growing up in this hype-filled bubble.

Now maybe he will listen a bit closer to those responsible voices.

I just hope it’s not too late.

Sports, Pages 20 on 01/16/2014

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