Penn State did what it had to do with Myles Hartsfield.
It had to turn away.
It had to go in a different direction.
It had to run.
Given what the football program at Sayreville War Memorial High School in New Jersey has been through, where an entire football season was canceled after a hazing scandal that resulted in several freshmen players being sexually abused by seniors led to seven players being charged, this was the predictable result whether Hartsfield was involved or not.
It’s not certain if Hartsfield — a three-star prospect who had committed to Penn State before the Nittany Lions coaching staff or someone else at the school decided it didn’t need the headache last Monday — was one of those charged. But it is certain Penn State didn’t need to associate itself with a kid associated with a group of seniors accused of that horror.
All of that said, it has to be an excruciating decision for coaches to part ways with a young player.
You might see just how difficult when you’re watching next year’s NFL Draft.
It’s far too early to pay much attention to the thousands of mock drafts floating around the Internet these days. But a surprising amount of them is starting to list Shawn Oakman near the top of their boards, if not at the very top.
Oakman, of course, is the standout Baylor defensive end, a 6-foot-9, 280-pound junior who had five sacks, four quarterback hurries and eight tackles for loss heading into the Bears’ game Saturday. He’s a raw player by any account. But if he chooses to leave school after this season, it seems unlikely he’d fall out of the first round at this point. He’s what NFL coaches and general managers pine for at the top of draft boards these days: a physical freak who can get to the quarterback and still has enough upside to become a much more refined player.
None of this is lost on Penn State fans, who have to remember that had it not been for a $7 hoagie and a young man’s massive mistake, Oakman would probably be a Nittany Lion today.
Oakman was 19 when he walked into an on-campus convenience story on St. Patrick’s Day in 2012. According to a CBS report, he was out of meal points on his student ID card and was hungry. So, he picked up a hoagie and a juice. He stuffed the sandwich in his jacket and tried to pay for the juice. When the cashier informed him he had
no points on his card, Oakman tried to get it back by grabbing her wrist. She screamed. Another worker noticed the sandwich in his jacket. It was all over from there.
Oakman was charged with a misdemeanor at exactly the wrong time. Then-coach Bill O’Brien hadn’t been on the job two months. O’Brien didn’t want a reputation for looking the other way. So, that was it. Oakman was gone.
Fans certainly see it as cut-and-dried sometimes. You do the crime, you do the time. In that sense, Shawn Oakman got what he deserved. He wanted to play football at Penn State, and because of his actions, he no longer could. He also got a second chance to not only become the player he could be, but the person, in part because then-defensive coordinator Larry Johnson recommended Brian Norwood, a former Penn State assistant who is now Baylor’s associate head coach, give him that chance.
By plenty of accounts, he has done that. On his way out the door at Penn State, Oakman wrote a letter to every teammate, apologizing for his actions and for having to leave them behind in the middle of their darkest hours.
O’Brien did what he had to do then, just like James Franklin did what he had to do when Hartsfield and Sayreville ran into problems. Those are business decisions. Cut-and-dried ones, for sure.
But they have to be gut-wrenching choices no matter how logical they seem. These are men, after all, who are in the business of judging potential — on the field and off the field. None of us has more potential than 18- and 19-year-olds trying to learn through trial and error how to be great citizens, when sometimes they don’t have the very best examples around them.
If Hartsfield lands on his feet and becomes a better person and a solid player somewhere else, nobody at Penn State will regret the decision it had to make last week. But as it certainly does with Shawn Oakman, it will probably wonder what might have been.
DONNIE COLLINS covers Penn State for Times-Shamrock. Follow him on Twitter at @psubst.