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Former Yale QB Patrick Witt

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Remember this guy? The one who was fawned over after choosing his team over his Rhodes Scholarship candidacy it appeared that an interview would conflict with the game against Harvard? Looks like there might be something else to the story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/s...lar-candidacy.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all?src=tp

In early November, according to those with knowledge of the matter, someone told the Rhodes Trust about the sexual assault accusation. The notification was not anonymous; it was not, though, made formally by a Yale official. Rhodes notified Levin, the Yale president, and other university administrators and gave them about a week to decide whether they still wanted to back Witt.

Yet on Nov. 12, The Wall Street Journal quoted Witt saying, ?I just need to make a decision and live with it.? In the same article, Yale?s athletic director, Tom Beckett, described his star quarterback as ?a deep thinker.?

?He likes challenges,? said Beckett, who refused to comment for this article.

?But I?m not sure if this is one that he?s relished.?

Yale had not told Rhodes whether it was re-endorsing Witt when he released a statement through the athletic department the next day.

?I will be playing in the Yale-Harvard game this Saturday,? it said. ?I have withdrawn my application for the Rhodes scholarship.?

The quarterback did not tie the two sentences, but journalists did, reporting that he had given up on the scholarship so that he could play. Neither Witt nor Yale corrected the misimpression.

After the loss to Harvard, when reporters asked whether he was now sorry to have skipped the Rhodes interview, Witt said, ?My decision wasn?t based on winning or losing this game.?
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The article also states that Witt has an interest in politics. He's well on his way - he has the alleged sexual assault and public statement half-truths down pat it seems.
 
Patrick Witt was recruited by Bill Callahan and came to Nebraska as a QB. He redshirted Callahan's final year (2007) and played in one or maybe two games in 2008 as a backup to Joe Ganz. After the 2008 season Witt was rumored to have approached Pelini seeking a guarantee that he would be the starter rather than Zac Lee, and Pelini wouldn't make any such guarantee. Witt's father is rumored to have attempted to put pressure on Pelini, but Bo had none of it.

Witt then transferred to Yale for "academic reasons." He's a solid student, so it made sense, but the rumors of the strong-arm attempt rankled many Nebraska fans. He was called Pat "QWitt" throughout the summer of 2009, and then largely forgotten. People at HuskerBoard, me included, wished him well when it came out that he was a Rhodes candidate.

Weird ending to his football saga. Sad that he didn't make it to the Rhodes testing because of this allegation, if true (of course, much sadder if he was involved in shenanigans with this girl).
 
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knapplc;2097408; said:
Patrick Witt was recruited by Bill Callahan and came to Nebraska as a QB. He redshirted Callahan's final year (2007) and played in one or maybe two games in 2008 as a backup to Joe Ganz. After the 2008 season Witt was rumored to have approached Pelini seeking a guarantee that he would be the starter rather than Zac Lee, and Pelini wouldn't make any such guarantee. Witt's father is rumored to have attempted to put pressure on Pelini, but Bo had none of it.

Witt then transferred to Yale for "academic reasons." He's a solid student, so it made sense, but the rumors of the strong-arm attempt rankled many Nebraska fans. He was called Pat "QWitt" throughout the summer of 2009, and then largely forgotten. People at HuskerBoard, me included, wished him well when it came out that he was a Rhodes candidate.

Weird ending to his football saga. Sad that he didn't make it to the Rhodes testing because of this allegation, if true (of course, much sadder if he was involved in shenanigans with this girl).
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Thanks for the background info.

When the story of the decision between the game and the Rhodes interview came out I was a bit flabbergasted. It seemed like choosing between a shot at that kind of academic honor and a football game would be a no-brainier, so when he backed out I figured that he must have had some kind of indication that he just wasn't that strong of a candidate. I never imagined it would have been due to anything like what has been alleged.

Given the way the story had previously been portrayed - that he chose to play game rather than pursue the scholarship, and not that the choice had been. made for him, I was a little bit upset with the amount of praise that got. If it were my son or daughter in that kind of situation, I would be disappointed in a straight up decision to play the game and not pursue the scholarship. Now though, it sounds like there might have been much worse decisions for this young man's family to be disappointed with.
 
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In a related story that has little to do with Pat Witt and more to do with journalistic ethics, apparently the Yale Daily News, Yale's well-respected student paper, knew about the Witt story yet chose to sit on it rather than report it. Weird.

LINK

Note, this is a blog, so it's one man's opinion. I don't agree with his label of "explosive," but the gist of the story is interesting.
 
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knapplc;2097590; said:
In a related story that has little to do with Pat Witt and more to do with journalistic ethics, apparently the Yale Daily News, Yale's well-respected student paper, knew about the Witt story yet chose to sit on it rather than report it. Weird.

LINK

Note, this is a blog, so it's one man's opinion. I don't agree with his label of "explosive," but the gist of the story is interesting.
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I was just about post that myself. It is a blog, but it's written by a student who was an opinion editor at the Yale Daily News last year. It also includes copies of some emails that support the notion that the story was not pursued. He raises some pretty broad criticisms of the "culture of silence" at Yale.
 
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woofermazing;2098480; said:
Thought this thread was going to be about next years Wisconsin QB.
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Still not out of the question. Broseph Bret Bielema knows a thing or two about bros being bros.
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