I’ll be looking forward to hearing what the ACC Network booth has to say about Solomon Beebe tomorrow night, assuming the backup UVA Football tailback and kick returner gets on the field for the Virginia-Syracuse game in primetime – which seems a safe assumption, given the kid-gloves handling Beebe got from UVA Athletics over his recent legal issues.
Most likely: you’ll hear play-by-play guy Jorge Sedano, a drive-time weekday ESPN Radio guy in Los Angeles, analyst Dave Clawson, the former coach at Wake Forest, and sideline reporter Madison Hock, who, from her bio, works for pretty much everybody in sports TV, mention the five-week suspension handed down to Beebe in the wake of him being charged with three counts of animal cruelty in August in passing, and if Beebe gets more than one touch as the game plays out, have something prepared for second and subsequent references regarding the “adversity” that he faced over the past several weeks.
From the archives
- Coverage of the Solomon Beebe case: click here.
I’ll wonder the same with the Virginia Sports Radio Network team of John Freeman, UVA Football alum Ahmad Hawkins and Jay James – who have even less incentive to use the words “animal cruelty,” much less go into any depth on the details of Beebe, in one instance, picking his dog, Jeb, a pit bull, up off the ground by the scruff of his neck, and in others, repeatedly hitting his dog, who, per video evidence presented in court, cowered in Beebe’s presence.
What we’re going to hear from the homers, and I assume also from the corporate partners of UVA Athletics at ACCN, is what Virginia coach Tony Elliott had to say about Beebe this week – TE noting, proudly, that Beebe, throughout his suspension, “had a great attitude,” had “done everything that he’s been asked to do,” accepted being a member of the scout team, “giving a great look to the defense, week in and week out for the last five weeks” – which, oddly, doesn’t sound like a suspension at all, that Beebe was allowed to be an active participant in team activities throughout.
You’ll also likely hear from the TV and radio folks about how people around the program think it’s “time to move on,” because Beebe “has paid his debt to society” – which, nah, not true; his lawyer pleaded down the three charges to one, to which Beebe pleaded no contest, and accepted a sentence that calls for him to perform 100 hours of community service, and undergo anger management and mental health treatment.
Where we are now in his case is, he got caught, he paid a lawyer, the lawyer got the charges reduced; the “debt to society” won’t have been paid until the judge signs off on the disposition of the Beebe case late next year – Beebe has to complete the conditions of the plea bargain by October 2027, and if he doesn’t, the judge noted in court last week that Beebe would face jail time.
UVA Athletics is lucky it won’t be facing mass protests from animal advocacy groups over the boneheaded move to send a guy who has now admitted to abusing his dog back out onto the field in the name of trying to win a football game, but then – the ‘Hoos aren’t the product they were thought to be, sitting at 3-2 after an ugly loss a week ago, and no matter what they announce as the official attendance for tomorrow night’s game, the stadium will be, maybe, half-full.
Most of the folks who would want to protest the move to reinstate Beebe will do so by just staying home – maybe tuning in on TV or on the radio, maybe not.
This is another good reason to wish that the team didn’t suck this year – the jury has already come back on that one; Elliott defiantly sticking with starting QB Beau Pribula has sealed its fate.
It seems that we’re due a reckoning over what the University of Virginia wants out of its acquiescence to the reality of what it takes to be a player in the big-money college athletics of the current day.
On the one hand, we’re spending more than ever, and still barely breaking even on the bottom line; on the other, to get to wherever we are with this, we played a kid all of last season who was under suspicion in a rape and abduction case for which he will go before a jury next month, and now, we’re throwing a second kid out there who can’t even be trusted to be able to be alone with a dog for the next five years.
If we’re not playing big-time sports to make money, and we’re not playing big-time sports to get good PR for the University …
What are we doing all of this for again?
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Chris Graham
