Advocates often work for police departments, but your point is taken.

What we do know is someone is lying in this case. And right now with what we know its enough for an impartial bobcat fan to HOPE for the sake of football that Roger is innocent. That is pretty self serving but thats reality because you guys don't know him. Me having a personal relationship with the kid makes it all the more perplexing because he is not at all a person that shows any violent inclinations at ALL..other than the football field of course. A good looking kid from a good family and good school but the way the world is now you cant doubt anything..its as damn shame.

Just trying to be clear, here, you're saying that even it he's acquitted, he's still not welcome, in your eyes?

In the immediate future, no. As I stated, recruiting him "at this point in time" is nonsense. He is not welcome. As in, attempting to sign him right now makes no sense. If he is acquitted in a clean manner with no ambiguity, that's another story.  However, even then charges must be sorted out and questions about character must be resolved. How can you not agree with that?

The reason I asked, GoCats, is that I believe there is unanimous agreement here that he will not be a Bobcat if he is convicted. Similarly, obviously he can't be a Bobcat without becoming academically eligible. Therefore the only recruitment question left is what should be done if he becomes academically eligible, and if he is acquitted, if charges are dropped, or if charges are withdrawn.

In the the case where he not found guilty, that is the place where there seems to be some division of opinion. Some, including me, believe that if he is acquitted, and if he is otherwise suitable to the staff, then Ohio should stand by their offer. Others, including you, seem to believe that since he has been accused, the mere accusation alone is enough that he should never be a Bobcat, even if he is never convicted of the charges.

I've been following this thread for a couple of days now. Interesting discussion.

I can't escape the high school coach in me. I've seen a lot of kids get recruited at my high school. Some of them are great kids and deserve the accolades. But some of these kids are so coddled and provided with extra chances, they then default on these chance and then only to receive still another another chance that it sickens me to no end. I teach plenty of bad kids, but the kids who can dribble and catch a ball and have hellicopter parents seem to always find a way to get extra chances for fear of having difficult conversations. Somewhere someplace sometime someone must say: enough. You don't get another chance. This appears...from my distant perch...a typical case.

There is a reason why Ohio State stopped following this kid. Sure, his ACT scores were not so good, but as some noted here that his GPA is decent. If the kid "bombed" the ACT, his GPA isn't an indicator of his potential. Remember: ACT is a pretty good statistical analysis for college success (not the best or the most complete, but a very good read into a kid). GPA only tells the story of the kid in school and in the moment. In fact, if the two are that different, I'd wonder about the high school in question and the difficulty of his course work AND..whether or not the school works on the deviation model for ACT success and grade accuracy. 

Rape charges do not fall from the sky. A good coach in our area gave me good advice when dealing with kids who continually fail classes, get in trouble, and generally act like a fool: bad things follow bad kids. I'm all for giving kids 2nd and 3rd chances. But someone has to eventually tell this kid that he's a good athlete, but he's gotta grow up. I'm not talking from a legal standpoint, but from a character standpoint.

If this kid is acquitted (as some are suggesting), I'm STILL not interested in having him around. Having a bad day on the ACT (classic: he's not a good test taker...which is the biggest crutch in the world of education) and 2 rape charges (guilty or not) are either a nice introduction to this young man's character or spectacularly crazy coincidental evidence we can witness.

Winning football is great, but when we stoop to adjusting our community's value for this type of success (but brand it under the possible social improvement in a young man or woman), we rarely come out on top.

I agree with L.C.
Medler, your analysis just doesn't work for me, and clearly there are two distinctive camps of thought on this issue. By following the concept "bad things follow bad kids" you're taking the easy way out--applying gut instinct to all situations. You don't have to weigh out the variables. That one tenet takes care of everything.

Again, no one (I think) would advocate letting this kid play for Ohio if he is indeed guilty. But why is it so distasteful to hold out on judgement until all the facts are in? When it comes to the eventual truth in this case, there's no prize for picking a winner early. Let's wait and see.

I understand this feeling, but I disagree with a poor test scoring having anything to do with a person's character. Neither my sister nor my wife scored very high on the ACT and both were put in college programs for students who were considered "at risk" for failing in college. Both my wife, at OU, and my sister, at BGSU, finished with GPAs well over 3.0. That low ACT score had no indication of college success. In fact, my wife earned her bachelors and masters in five years total. Now I grant that neither of the people I'm talking about scored quite as low as what's reported in this case, but I also bet if he takes the test another time or two, he could score a good four or five points higher and then he would be in a range that no one would be concerned with at all.

So are you saying you don't want to wait and see? If Lewis is found innocent, he should be relagated to junior college because just the act of being accused is a stain on his character? I'm not positive that's what you're saying. I just want to clarify.

If I am understanding correctly, Medler, because of his prior experiences with other athletes, declines to consider that there is any possibility that Lewis is innocent, nor any possibility that Lewis can academically qualify. Therefore he is only willing to comment on the situation where he is either guilty, or fails to qualify. That doesn't get us very far in resolving the discussion because there is no disagreement as to what should happen if Lewis is guilty, nor what should happen if he fails to qualify..

I was lost when this guy said that "Bad things only happen to Bad Kids".
The coaches have spoken with Roger and his parents many times..they have not just started a relationship with the kid..Ohio was his 1st offer back in 2010. He has been told by personally by Coach Solich what needs to happen in order for him to get here and regardless if it happens or not he has bigger issues than football right now. He did persuade his friend Sebastian Smith to come to Ohio and maybe Sebastian is confident that Roger will get straighten out and possibly join him in the future..who knows. I think there was some serious concern if Sebastian would commit after the whole thing.

He didn't say that. Be found!