Monday, July 28, 2008, 03:13 AM EST
[
Marques Wade]
The college football season is just around the corner, but the police blotter just keeps on getting hit up during these late-July days.
The latest comes from Arkansas wide receiver Marques Wade, who's facing a drunken driving charge after almost hitting a police officer Saturday night.
According to the Fayetteville police report, Wade sped through a parking lot and nearly slid into another officer.
When police finally stopped him, Wade initially denied drinking but then confessed he had "smoked some marijuana earlier in the day" (and I'm still trying to figure out how telling the officer that would have helped his cause).
That wasn't exactly enough of an explanation to free Wade of a breathalyzer test, which registered his blood-alcohol level at 0.11, slightly higher than Arkansas' legal limit of 0.08.
Of course, besides the fact that Wade was booked in Washington County jail and required to post an $880 bond, the best part of this story is the fact that Wade isn't the first Arkansas football player to find his way into trouble in the past 12 months.
In fact, the incident marks the fifth arrest for Bobby Petrino's team in the past year - not exactly something you anticipate as a first-year coach in the middle of rebuilding a program that lost two-time All-American and Heisman finalist Darren McFadden and saw Houston Nutt bail for the Ole Miss job at season's end.
So when, if ever, will these kids learn?
Better yet, will these kids ever learn?
My answer: Probably not. Not when you're 18-22 years of age and playing football for a big-time Division I program in the nation's best conference hands down.
Instead, all we can do is hope that the number of these incidents grows thinner and thinner each year.
But between the Ryan Perrillouxs, Curtis Pulleys and Marques Wades of the college football world, I wouldn't count on that happening any time soon.
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