What I don’t get about the Jiggy Situation…

There is something that is puzzling to me about the Jiggy Watkins situation. So after a day considering everything, I thought I might as well write about it.  So here it goes…

Jiggy, despite what is creeping out on Utah message boards. is by accounts of anyone who has been in actual contact with Jiggy knows he is a good kid, a nice kid.  The question is, is there maybe a reason for the problem beyond “Jiggy is lazy?”  From the suspension last time we know Jiggy’s mom talked about how he’s always had sleep and fatigue issues and that in fact it is a family trait.  Jiggy also has asthma.  I spoke to a medical student yesterday who told me that those two conditions together could be life threatening and at a minimum he should absolutely be seeing a pulmonologist and have a sleep study done.

Also lets look at the fact that Jiggy owned his first suspension, expressed real remorse and practiced after Utah practices to stay sharp.

Now the question is, did the staff at Utah ever do anything to try and figure out if there was something behind Jiggy’s issues or was it simply a case of them not caring?  The thing is, I get if you just pull the trigger on an asshole, like Sendek at Arizona St. and Howland at UCLA did.  But we know Jiggy isn’t that, even Bill Riley said so.  He’s not Carlon Brown for goodness sakes.  (Side Note: Ute fans are also busy rewriting the history of Carlon Brown since he’s playing well at Colorado, when in fact he was far more selfish on the court and off than Jiggy was on his worst day).

I ask that question because here is the kicker, if Jiggy’s issues are medically related and this staff simply ignored it, Jiggy would have every right to sue us, and I’ve confirmed this opinion with two other attorneys.  What makes me think  this is the case are Larry’s comments from last night when Bill Oram tweeted that Larry said he doesn’t think anyone else will be late for practice again.

So Larry crapped on a good kid who likely has a serious medical issue to prove he’s a tough guy.

The thing is, the tough guy routine worked for Majerus for a long time because it was clear on some level he also gave a shit about the guys.  Yeah, he held grudges and was over the top profane and by the time 2000 rolled around it was clear his time at Utah should also be at an end.  But he also stayed up with Van Horn all night when his dad died and forced the University to buy a very expensive piece of equipment to treat a little douchebag like Trent Whiting.  Hell, often his biggest rages were because he felt his players were in danger.

Between this and the way he ran guys including waiting till August to pull Dom Lee’s scholarship, leaving Dom nowhere to go (not to mention how could Dom Lee have possibly made this team worse), does Larry give a shit about players?  Or is it something about not giving a shit about Jim Boylen’s players.

In any case, there could be a very big story here, one I’m sure will be ignored.