Novices...
The University of Louisville took the path of law and order on Thursday, kicking three players off the men’s soccer team and suspending three more in the wake of a
www.wdrb.com
>>First off, he said, he never intended to "have a party," and certainly did not organize one. He lives with five teammates in what he described as “a gated group of houses leased to many student-athletes.” They’ve been there since reporting back to campus on June 15, along with many other athletes. They’d completed the voluntary portion of their workouts COVID-free. Had just tested negative. Again. All six of them had. They were going to celebrate. They’d been careful. They were going to hang out. There wasn’t a whole lot else to do. They told another teammate he could come over. Seven guys having a good time.
Except it wasn’t just seven. The teammate brought a few people, including a couple that Wheeler didn’t know. And, if you’ve been around these things, you know they can escalate quickly. And let’s not sugar-coat it, it got out of hand. Now, it wasn’t Snoop Dog-coming-on-stage-in-Old-School wild, but it definitely outgrew its originally scheduled parameters. I’ll let the player tell it in his own words.
“We didn’t plan a ‘party’ or large gathering last Saturday,” Wheeler said. “We didn’t invite a crowd to come to our house. One other student-athlete who had also just tested negative for COVID was invited to come over and hang out with us. This violated no rule. Several uninvited student-athletes followed him in. They said they were also COVID free. But, things escalated quickly. Athletes from multiple teams were let in by others we hadn’t invited. I didn’t know many of them. This made it more difficult to try to get the situation under control. We tried shutting it down and getting people to leave, but it took over an hour.”<<