I've been following this Tennessee recruiting stuff over the past couple of days, and when the picture came out with the two so-called "hostesses" at the game with the two recruits, holding that sign up, I realized that I recognized the girl. I had seen her in recruiting pics before.
"Bryce Brown's girlfriend Lacy Earps is a Jr. at UT, and would love nothing more than to watch her boyfriend play on Saturday's without having to fly to Miami or Oregon. How serious this "romance" is I can't say, but if her Facebook profile picture is any indication of how interwoven this romance is, Brown may be running through the "T" this fall.
Lacey + Bryce = Bracey? This relationship must be serious, right?..."
"But how serious can girlfriends be? Just ask David Oku, who moved to Nebraska to be with his girlfriend. The verdict on that case still remains to be seen.
So, whatever your opinion is on the matter, it's fun to speculate what could possibly be in the works.
I for one believe Bryce Brown will be a Vol for a number of reasons. He know's he'll have a chance to play immediately, and will embrace the opportunity to showcase his talent in front of 107,000 + fans. Not to mention the television exposure he'll have throughout the season. Oh, and of course having his lady on campus can't hurt either."
Ok, first off, she's the captain of Orange Pride, which is the group of chicks that host recruits on campus. Next, while Bryce Brown was a senior in high school, his supposed girlfriend was a Junior at UT? Explain this one to me. A 21-year old white upper class trash chick, that lives in Knoxville, TN, dating a 17 or 18 year old black high school senior from Kansas, who just happens to be the #1 recruit in the country. Who, magically, after months of narrowing schools down to Miami, Oregon, and Kansas St, decides to go play for Tennessee. Pretty much out of nowhere. Hmmm. Smell somethin fishy yet?
So, she's out checking out other recruits, 200 miles away from campus, while her boyfriend, Bryce, is chillin at home in Knoxvegas, right? I'd be very interested to find out who paid for those hotel rooms.
Now, excuse me if I'm wrong here, but the argument that a lot of fans are making by saying that she is not a representative of the school, and didn't realize what she was doing, doesn't really hold up well when there are pictures of her on the field at UT football games. I would assume anyone allowed on the field would be given credentials by either the University or the coaching staff, right? Players families and/or girlfriends are not just allowed on the field. Something REALLY stinks here.
I'm totally jumping to conclusions, but I can do that because I'm just a blogger. It really looks like Tennessee is running a brothel. Check out the comments by Keith Easterwood, a Memphis basketball AAU guy that just so happened to have a son that was a fairly high level recruit last year. These appeared in yesterday's New York Times article.
"Also on Friday, Keith Easterwood, a veteran summer basketball coach, said that on a visit last year with his son, a football recruit, he had to ask a hostess to stop brushing her breasts against both him and his son.
He recalled saying, “Young lady, if you don’t stop doing that, we’ve got a problem.”
Easterwood said that he took a group of basketball players to a Western Kentucky football game at Tennessee this year, and that the presence of the hostesses had his players “literally reduced to blubbering idiots.”
“I’ve been up there five times, four for football and one basketball visit,” Easterwood said. “My observation is that this is a very organized operation. These girls have obviously been groomed. There’s a lot of eye contact and touching.”
I gotta admit. I'm having a damn blast with this stuff. I'm sure a ton more will come out of this. We'll have to just watch and see.
Oh yeah. StiffArmTrophy.com, who has correctly predicted the last 7 heisman winners, and their margin of victory, etc, is predicting that Mark Ingram will win tonight in a close race. So tune in at 7pm CST on ESPN. Should be interesting. Immediately following that, change it over to ESPN2 and watch Anthony Grant's Tide Basketball team take on #5 Purdue. Should be a helluva game.
¶ 1:16 PM
