Suspended running back LeGarrette Blount may be reinstated, Oregon football head coach Chip Kelly announced Friday.
Whether Blount plays again depends on certain “academic and behavioral ladders” that he must complete, Kelly said, but if he does, he will be able to suit up for the Ducks as early as Nov. 7 against Stanford.
Kelly said the plan was finalized last Friday, Sept. 25 after speaking with Dr. Harry Edwards — a sociologist whose career has focused on the experiences of African-American athletes — and former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy. Kelly drafted a document with the help of the University’s attorney, and both he and Blount signed it in his office.
“Me and him made an agreement,” Kelly said. “And that agreement basically is, there are some academic and behavioral ladders he has to climb for him to ever gain an opportunity to play football again. I am not reinstating LeGarrette Blount now, and I want to make sure everyone understands that. What we put in place is a plan that he will have the opportunity to come back … there’s a distinct possibility he won’t be reinstated.”
This decision comes after Kelly’s original decision on Sept. 4 to suspend Blount after his actions following the team’s 19-8 loss to Boise State on Sept. 3. On national television, Blount punched Bronco Byron Hout in the jaw and was involved in an altercation with fans on the way to the visitors’ locker room.
“I made a decision on Sept. 4 in consultation with my athletic director, the president of this University and Larry Scott (the Pac-10 commissioner),” Kelly said. “And I’ll reiterate it again: that was my decision, and my decision only, to suspend LeGarrette Blount for the season. I made it as harsh a penalty as I could so he would understand the ramifications of what was ahead of him.”
Oregon athletic director Mike Bellotti said after the press conference that Kelly’s decision to revisit the Blount story should be taken as a positive.
“Chip’s willingness to change his mind is not a negative,” Bellotti said. “The flip-flop decision will always be controversial, but at the time, he made what he thought was the very best decision, and now he’s giving LeGarrette the opportunity to make the best of it with his life. I’m proud of the way he’s handled it. Chip is very true to what he believes, and Chip is very honest about where that leads.”
Kelly said he opened a dialogue with Blount the next day to discuss things he needed to do to change things around. At the time, Kelly said, he never gave Blount any indication that he was going to reinstate him.
“He needed to prove to me that he wanted to change and that he wanted to make this situation right,” Kelly said.
Since then, Blount has continued to practice with the team, and on Thursday he submitted a letter to the Oregon Daily Emerald in which he apologized to the campus community for his actions. Kelly confirmed that the letter was a part of the agreement.
Kelly wouldn’t go into specifics about the plan — he only said that it included academic and behavioral benchmarks.
“I’ll be the first to tell you that discipline to me is about one thing and one thing only: behavioral improvement,” Kelly said. “It’s not about punishment. There’s a better plan in place for LeGarrette’s behavioral improvement. I’m not going to stick my head in the sand and be a stubborn person and say that I made a decision and that’s the way it’s going to be. It’s not a football decision; it’s a human being decision.”
As for the timing of the decision, Kelly said that he wanted to wait until school started, and it was a month from the original incident.
“School just started on Tuesday,” Kelly said. “I can’t obviously put some academic ladders in there and then after two weeks of school say it’s fine. I felt like that it was enough to get him back into place, and it would also be a seven- or eight-game suspension. I didn’t want this to be a secret and then all of a sudden I pop up at Stanford that LeGarrette’s playing for us,” Kelly continued. “That’s the one thing that I wrestled with in all of this — when to announce this.”
Bellotti said that the final decision is two-part. First, Kelly and University officials will sit down before the Stanford game and see if Blount has achieved the goals laid out in the plan. If that’s the case, it will then be taken to the Scott, Pac-10 commissioner.
The first-year athletic director added that President Richard Lariviere and the University are behind Kelly in his decision.
As for Kelly, he said he’s used this opportunity as a chance to learn and said that he’s going to stay beside Blount no matter the outcome.
“I know every detail of LG’s life and he’s been through a lot,” Kelly said.
“But I’m going to stick by him. Whether he makes it through this or not, I will always stick by him.”
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