JMU Dismisses Corey Davis and Xavier Crocker From the Football Team
JMU announced that Corey Davis and Xavier Crocker have been dismissed from the football team for a violation of team rules. No further details were provided by the athletic department, but the announcement comes on the heels of DNR report (behind paywall) that the two former players were present at an off-campus shooting over the weekend. This is the second time that Davis has been punished for a violation of team rules.
According to the report, Davis and Crocker went to a house at the Overlook at Stone Brook last Saturday to buy some weed from Nicholas Dixon. Dixon became upset with the former players’ payment and fired several rifle shots at the car they were riding in. Neither Davis nor Crocker were injuried, but the driver of the car, Danyelle Kent-Robinson, was hit three times. Police say that Kent-Robinson had no knowledge that Davis and Crocker were attempting to buy drugs. She was first treated at Rockingham Memorial Hospital before being flown to UVA Medical Center on Monday, where she remains in critical but stable condition. Dixon and his two accomplices have already been arrested.
Davis is a redshirt junior who started at cornerback last year. He had a total of 40 tackles (25 solo), 4 passes defensed, and 1 fumble recovery for the season. Crocker redshirted last year and was a member of JMU’s highly touted recruiting class from two years ago. He had an outstanding high school career, in which he excelled on both sides of the ball as a receiver and defensive back. Both players are replaceable, but this is definitely a loss for the Dukes.
Obviously, the real tragedy here is that an innocent person was shot. Because Davis and Crocker were football players however, the story will likely draw more attention. And that’s both expected and fair.
College kids everywhere make dumb decisions. This was a bad decision with particularly bad consequences though. JMU simply can’t afford to have “football players”, “drug deal” and “shooting” showing up in headlines. Mickey (if in fact it was his call) had no wiggle room. He couldn’t afford to let this simmer. He had to act quickly and decisively and he did. Because there are always people who want the coach held accountable for the actions of his players 24/7, but there tends to be a lot more of them when the wins aren’t piling up like they used to.
As an alum, I fully expect the University Administration to kick these guys out ASAP. JMU should have zero tolerance for this kind of ghetto bullcrap.
On the bright side, the police blotter indicates we are on the road to becoming BCS football powerhouse.
Haha. Todd and I were texting last night about how bad it sucks that JMU seems to be experiencing FBS problems at the FCS level. Not sure if it’s just more stories being reported, but it sure seems like there has been a rise in bad decision making the past few years.
We do have the fbs level problems with players without the fbs football.
Zero tolerance for crap like this anywhere, and certainly by college athletes. JMU should be better than this. Thanks for dragging all 100,000+ of your family members down because of your lack of ability to make even half-way decent choices guys.
I fully applaud the zero tolerance policy by the Football progam and JMU. Hopefully these 2 are completely booted out of JMU as well. I only hope this sends a loud and clear message that this type of behavior simply will not be tolerated at JMU.
@2004 Duke: This is not just “ghetto bullcrap”. This could have easily have been “suburb bullcrap”. Just “bullcrap” probably would’ve worked just fine.
That being said, I agree with actions taken so far in response to the situation. These young men clearly were not thinking of their long term future and the affect this short term decision would have on the rest of their lives. If the admin decides to expel these students, then I’d have no problem with that either, especially since a young lady was injured. They should be thankful that things did not turn out even worse.
I feel terrible for Danyelle, who was an outstanding JMU athlete- won the CAA high jump championship two years ago, I believe. The weirdest part about this story is that it was a drug deal gone wrong in OVERLOOK, of all places- one of the nicest apartment complexes around (it’s that new one you can see from 81 about a mile south of the port republic exit.)
I mean, this is the kind of stuff I would expect up on north main… not freaking Overlook.
I hate to lose secondary depth like this, but you’ve gotta kick these guys off the team- particularly with the weed-related problems JMU has already had the past few years.
Oh it was in OVERLOOK. Why would anyone bring a gun to a drug deal in OVERLOOK. Crazy….
They didn’t bring a gun to OVERLOOK, the person at OVERLOOK had the gun and did the shooting.
Ghetto Bullcrap? Drop the ghetto…leave the bullcrap.