I don't know who Leonard LIttle is...what happened there?
He got drunk and ran over a mother. Got the proverbial slap on the wrist, served an eight game suspension, and has had a very long NFL career. Here is a story that talks about Little and others:
Donte' Stallworth plea bargain recalls 1998 Leonard Little case; he drove drunk and killed a motoristBy BRIAN BIGGANE
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
One hundred yards. The length of a football field.
That's how far St. Louis Rams rookie Leonard Little traveled in his Lincoln Navigator the night of Oct. 19, 1998, before running a red light and smashing into a Ford Thunderbird driven by Susan Gutweiler, 47, of suburban Oakville.
Little had been celebrating his 24th birthday with teammates at a bar. After the crash, his blood-alcohol level measured 0.19, more than double the Missouri legal limit of 0.08.
Gutweiler died of her injuries the next day.
A little over a year later, after Little pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, served 90 days in jail and was suspended by the NFL for the first eight games of the 1999 season, coach Dick Vermeil brought him back to the team.
The storm of protests continues to this day.
"I did what I thought was right for the person involved," Vermeil said recently from his home in Kansas City. "From time to time you can't please everybody."
The Cleveland Browns soon will face a similar question regarding wide receiver Donte' Stallworth, who Tuesday began serving a 30-day jail sentence for driving drunk and fatally hitting a 59-year-old construction worker who, while trying to catch a bus, was cutting across a Miami Beach street.
Before the Browns decide on Stallworth's return, they'll await the decision of Commissioner Roger Goodell, who is looking into disciplinary action. Next month, Goodell is expected to rule on an even larger controversy - the potential return of quarterback Michael Vick, who is scheduled to be released from home confinement July 20 after serving 23 months in custody for running a dog-fighting ring.
The short sentence negotiated by Stallworth shocked some fans. The same feeling ran through St. Louis when Little was jailed a decade ago. That controversy concerning the discipline for Little, who killed a mother of two, remains charged today.
"We can write a game story that does nothing more than quote Leonard Little regarding a play he made and we'll get e-mails saying, 'Why are you quoting that murderer?' " St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bryan Burwell said. "Some people will never forgive him."
Mike Boland, president of the Missouri chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) when Gutweiler was killed, said Little spent too little time behind bars.
"For what Mr. Little did, it was definitely not enough," Boland said.
NFL teams dealing with the fallout of athletes who turn into criminals is nothing new. Nearly 40 years ago, in 1970, the Dallas Cowboys felt compelled to trade wide receiver Lance Rentzel after he was charged with exposing himself to a 10-year-old boy.
"(Coach) Tom Landry was offended and angry about it," said former Cowboys personnel director Gil Brandt. "You want to give a guy another chance, but you also want to do what's right. It's a hard option."
The Cowboys proved more tolerant when Michael Irvin had a series of runs-in with the law in the late '90s.
Cincinnati wide receiver Chris Henry tested the limits of the Bengals' tolerance when he was arrested in five separate incidents from 2005-08. Last pre-season, just when it seemed that Henry had used up his last chance, General Manager Mike Brown signed him to a two-year contract after both Chad Ochocinco and T.J. Houshmandzadeh went down with injuries.
One angry fan reacted by renting a billboard on a busy interstate that flashed the words "Chris Henry Again? ... Are You Serious?"
Henry hasn't made another misstep since. "I made up my mind I was going to stay away from that type of stuff," he said. "It's been pretty much a complete 360. It's what I had to do."
While questions have arisen over the character of Vick, Henry and scores of others involved in such incidents, Vermeil said it was Little's character that suggested he be given another chance as quickly as he was.
"He wasn't a problem drinker, nothing like that," Vermeil said. "He's a very quiet young man, humble, with a rural background, the kind of guy who would never speak up even in the linebacker meetings. To call him a murderer, that's just not him.
"He made a mistake. It's a fact there was an accident, and it's a fact that a person passed away. That was terrible. There's nothing worse for him than knowing he'd made a mistake and that mistake cost a person their life. It's something he'll never get rid of."
Little, who this fall will enter his 12th season, all with the Rams, was elected to the Pro Bowl in 2002. Over the years, he has transitioned from linebacker to defensive end.
MADD's Boland remains unhappy with the way the Rams - and Vermeil in particular - handled what transpired in the weeks and months after the accident, which occurred the day after the Rams visited Miami and lost 14-0 to the Dolphins.
"Their decision from the get-go was to look at the death of Mrs. Gutweiler and call it 'the situation,' " Boland said. "They never talked about him pleading guilty or committing a crime; it was always 'the situation.' "
On Nov. 14, 1999, the day Little was eligible to return, MADD staged a march from the crash site of the accident to the TWA Dome, stopping there to erect a memorial featuring a picture of Gutweiler and laying down 526 flowers, one for each victim of a drunk-driving accident in Missouri that year.
Little served 1,000 hours of community service as part of his sentence. Boland said it was hoped he might use his celebrity status to become a spokesman for their cause, and in the past few years he has addressed the issue with school and church groups. Those who know him say asking more would be asking too much.
"There are all kinds of personalities who would step up and do those things," Vermeil said. "Leonard is very quiet and withdrawn. That's not him."
Six years after the accident, in 2004, Little was again arrested for drunk driving and speeding, but the field-test results for blood-alcohol level were faulty and he refused a second test at the police station. He was ultimately acquitted of driving while intoxicated and convicted of the misdemeanor speeding charge.
Dan Lebowitz, executive director of Sport in Society, a research group at Northeastern University in Boston, said the cases of Little, Stallworth, Vick and others force sports fans to decide how much they're willing to tolerate.
"A lot of these athletes get a lot of money at a very young age, and the decisions they make are not the best," Lebowitz said. "You have to look at the entire equation: At what point do the negatives outweigh the positives?
"Athletes are people, and most of us are willing to give people a second chance. You just hope they make the most of it."
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/dolphins/content/sports/epaper/2009/06/17/0617little.html
