LeGarrette Blount will play for Oregon Football this weekend

Oregon Running back LeGarrette Blount will play for Oregon's football team after he was suspended in September for punching Boise State Defensive End Byron Hout after Oregon's loss to that team to open the NCAA College Football season.



Blount will play against Arizona State this Saturday. Moreover, the action has the full support of Boise State Head Coach Chris Petersen, who said:

"We have tremendous respect for Oregon. Those coaches, we know most of those guys very well. And so, whatever they decide we're 100 percent behind. I think that's good for all involved if that's what they chose to do."

After the punch seen then as many times as New Mexico Soccer Player Elizabeth Lambert's dirty play videos will be seen over the next few months, LeGarrette Blount was the focus of name-calling, ridicule, and just plain hate by members of the media, reflecting the mob-mentality that grew from this incident.

But that mentality was not shared by everyone, especially Oregon Receiver Jamere Holland and his friend and my contact E.J. Prince and those close to Blount who told me that Byron Hout made a racially offensive statement to Blount, the N-word, which is what caused Blount to go off, not just hitting Hout, but attempting to work his way to Boise State fans who were yelling all kinds of things to provoke him.

This is the contents of the blog post I wrote outlining my source's claim that Hout said the N-word to Blount:

Twitter was the source of the latest information torpedo in the (unfortunately) still unfolding story behind the "punch seen round the sports World" by Oregon Running Back LeGarrett Blount to Boise State Defensive End Byron Hout.

Track athlete E.J. Prince used Twitter to blast this:

@realskipbayless Just talked to Jamere Holland (from Oregon WR) said that L. Blount socked dude from Boise State cuz he called him a n_____

Jamere Holland is Oregon's wide receiver.

Prince also tweeted this:

@q17 yeah I just hope the news about LaGarett Blount being censored gets out to people like @jemelehill

@jemelehill is ESPN Columnist and Analyst Jemele Hill.

There's no indication that she responded to Prince's Twitter feed. He also sent a tweet to Skip Bayless; no tweet back to Prince from Bayless. Basically it seems that Prince's story is being ignored by certain mainstream media people. I can't confirm that, but it seems that way.

The main problem has been that none of the main actors in this play are talking. LeGarrette Blount's not moving his lips. Byron Hout's lost his voice. Both schools are silent on the question.

(And on that note, my first blog post speculated on the use of the N-word, not claimed that Hout used it as one blogger inaccurately wrote; this is different.)

E. J. Prince's value in this story rests on his tweet that he talked to (not tweeted) a friend of Oregon receiver Jamere Holland who plays for Oregon and who I will not name here.

I revisit this because since this blog post was issued I've got a lot of negative comments that all follow the same train of thought that I'm "playing the race card" (which the users of the term don't know the meaning of) or that I'm being racist, which is just plain nuts and a "Couch Potato Conservative" mind-trick.

But I do it also because I've received a number of subsequent messages and emails explaining that many Boise State Football fans were referring to Blount using the N-word in online forums. That lends weight to the assertion that Boise State fans uses racial slurs in taunting Blount.

Since Boise State never officially explained exactly what Hout said, the speculation plus the assertions of my sources that he did use a racist term have been given more and more value.

That was bad PR on Boise State's part, plus the news that Hout would not be punished as Blout was and that it would be handled "internally" by the Boise State Football team gave rise to more speculation on what Hout said and did.

I also press this because of the desire by some to cover it up. People need to see society as it is before it can become what we want it to be. We've still got a lot of problems to straighten out. Hiding from the truth in any situation does not allow us to make progress in making ourselves better.

LeGarrette Blount took his punishment and reportedly proved himself in the classroom and in the Oregon college community during his suspension. I welcome him back, but with the sad realization that the "tests" he had to pass to rejoin the team are the same ones that should be applied to many of the people who taunted him in the first place, but they never will be.