Sooners can live without Chaisson

Commentary

By Clay Horning

Justin Chaisson can’t come to Oklahoma.

He probably will. He is, after all, the No. 41 recruit in the nation, the No. 1 player in Nevada and the nation’s 19th best prospect on the defensive line according to your recruiting bible of choice. It says so on soonersports.com, the university’s athletic Web site. Look around and you’ll find it.

But if you’re interested, do it quickly. Bob Stoops, Joe Castiglione and David Boren have been known to do the right thing. Perhaps they will again.

Chaisson, a 6-foot-5, 265-pound defensive end out of Las Vegas’ Bishop Gorman, is just one of many standouts the Sooners inked last national signing day. But he is the only one who’s since been charged with felonious behavior.

The charges originated from an incident that took place March 17, recently recapped in a story appearing in the Las Vegas Sun May 6.

According to a police report, on March 17, Chaisson forced his 17-year-old ex-girlfriend into the back seat of his sport utility vehicle in a coffee shop parking lot.

The victim told police Chaisson punched her in the ribs and drove her into the desert where he pulled her from the car. She said he then put a screwdriver to her neck and threatened to kill her until two of her friends pulled up on the scene and he forced her into his car again.

According to the police report, the incident ended when one of the two friends called 911 and Chaisson told his ex-girlfriend to exit his vehicle at a storage facility.

Of course, Chaisson is innocent until proven guilty, unless he pleads guilty, or no contest, which he has since done to a series of misdemeanors, two of them being for false imprisonment. For his plea, Chaisson has been sentenced to no more than three years probation, community service, dometic-violence counseling and restitution to be determined at a future date.

On the surface, those are the facts.

Here’s another fact. According to Chaisson’s lawyer, Michael Cristalli, the plea agreement was arranged with OU’s … well, here’s how Cristalli was quoted in the same Las Vegas Sun story.

“He’s still going to Oklahoma,” Cristalli said. “We were working in conjunction with Oklahoma with these negotiations to make sure they would be comfortable with him going to the university and participating in the program.”

Perhaps Cristalli might like another shot at his explanation, because this one is sickening. He worked with OU to “make sure they would be comfortable with him …”

Well, the Sooner brass can think a lot of things. The powers who be may think everybody’s entitled to a second chance or rules are rules and it takes a felony conviction to lose your ride or even, Gee whiz, the kid can really get to the quarterback, but nobody can possibly be comfortable with Chaisson’s pending attendance at OU nor his impending residence in this town.

Perhaps at this moment OU is running its own investigation. Perhaps somebody is quietly getting all the facts from Las Vegas detectives, or even Chaisson’s classmates. Perhaps the Sooners are learning the meaning of due diligence all over again and a sensible resolution will soon be at hand, even if Mr. Cristalli believes he made two deals recently at the Clark County Courthouse, one with prosecutors and the other with the crimson and cream.

And just maybe, the football program and every other program, athletic, academic and extra-curricular at our state’s finest university will adopt a new rule, even quietly, unsaid, unwritten as it were.

Threaten to kill your girlfriend, current or ex, and you lose the privilege of OU paying your way. Kidnap somebody before you ever arrive and you don’t get to arrive. Prey upon the weak and you can go somewhere else.

Not here.

Clay Horning

366-3526

cfhorning@normantranscript.com