DEATH, LAWRENCE PHILLIPS, AND THE CORNHUSKERS TEAM THAT NO ONE COULD BEAT

[mwulf]

https://sports.vice.com/en_us/artic...d-the-cornhuskers-team-that-no-one-could-beat
Over the years, there have been many college football superpowers that combined on-field domination with an air of off-the-field menace. The Barry Switzer-era Oklahoma Sooners, for instance, featured players freebasing cocaine on gamedays and firing Uzis to break up snowball fights. And thanks to a pair of excellent "30-for-30" documentaries, we're in a period of nostalgia for the outlaw mystique of "The U." The USC Trojans under Pete Carroll, while generally steering clear of law-enforcement encounters, got up to enough mischief to draw the NCAA's punitive wrath. Even in this distinguished field, however, the mid-90s Cornhuskers, and in particular the legendary 1995 team, stand out for laying waste to competitors while stacking up criminal charges.

 

[huskerj12]

Really good article actually.

 

[EastCoastHusker]

Pretty amazing that 17 Blackshirts from the '95 team went on to play in the NFL.

 

[HuskerBlueDevil]

That is a pretty good article, although there are a few glaring omissions. Like the fact that Steele locked gun in the cabinet at the request of the LPD, as established in his defamation lawsuit against Lacey.

 

[mothmonsterman]

The misconceptions about the 95 team have taught me not to trust media narratives about other programs. They might get the majority of the facts right but there is almost always going to be some glaring omissions, and there are almost always going to be misconceptions trumpeted as accepted fact.

 

[mothmonsterman]

Also, I seem to recall that the Benning thing turned out to be definitively proven to be a false accusation.

 

[HuskerBlueDevil]

Yep, Benning had just broken up with a girlfriend who then went bat-shit crazy on him. She came over to his apartment and stood outside screaming. When he came out she proceeded to hit him, key his car and tear his clothes. He did nothing in return, just sat on the trunk of his car while she went off. A group of people gathered, several of whom offered to call the cops on the woman, but Benning told them not to. Finally Benning went back inside. The woman followed and when Benning slammed the door in her face the door allegedly hit her. She initially claimed Benning punched her, but then changed her story to Benning intentionally hitting her with the door. Benning was charged with domestic violence, but when the neighbors were interviewed and the damage to the car shown to the DA (and the former girlfriend's story changed almost as much as Kathy Redmond's) charges against Benning were dropped and the woman was charged. I don't recall what happened to the woman, although there initially was talk of a deferred sentence.

 

[HuskerBlueDevil]

The misconceptions about the 95 team have taught me not to trust media narratives about other programs. They might get the majority of the facts right but there is almost always going to be some glaring omissions, and there are almost always going to be misconceptions trumpeted as accepted fact.

The lies (there's no other word for it) that were printed in 1995 about the program were astounding. For example, while not to make light of what happened to Kate McEwen, LP never struck her. The only physical injury she suffered was a small cut on the back of her head that, ironically, was caused by Scott Frost and a bystander when they pushed between her and LP and knocked her backwards into a bannister. Nevertheless, the Boston Globe reported that LP had beaten her so badly that she was in a coma for 5 days. The Detroit Free Press reported that she had been beaten so badly that her parents had a priest perform last rites, and that she was in the hospital for 3 days before being allowed to go home to recuperate. Hmmm, she was in a coma for 5 days, but allowed to go home after 3? In the same article the Detroit Free Press also reported that one of NU's starting wide receivers (interestingly they didn't give a name) had been convicted of second degree murder for killing a police officer in a botched 7/11 robbery. The feeding frenzy was ridiculous. To its credit, after the disgusting Bernard Goldberg ambush interview, CBS did a short piece prior to the bowl game where they showed that something like (I don't recall the exact numbers) 65 Division 1 football teams had had more players convicted of crimes that year than NU, and something like 15 Division 1 teams had had more players convicted of crimes in the 1 year of 1995 than NU had had convicted in the previous 10 years combined. Still, the lies kept coming.