Texas A&M – Commerce football players stole all copies of the East Texas student newspapers from every news rack on campus. 

    If you woke up on campus Feb 25th, ordered your morning java and were looking for a little newsprint to go with your coffee, well…. too bad for you. Sorry, you’re going to have to sip your coffee sans fishwrap. The East Texan might be an award winning college paper but on last Thursday it’s a big nada for you. Big muscular linebackers made the decision reading might give you eye strain, therefore detrimental to your health. On February 25th swift defensive backs had your back, saving your vertebras from having to lift the ultra-strenuous six pages of the East Texan. You may have wished to bring an East Texan with you into the john but tight ends were protecting you tight end. You might have wished to purchase extra papers at 25 cents each but strong-armed quarterbacks made sure you had your quarters back.

    “Enough already,” says former neighbor Lyle. “Just tell us why the football team swiped all these papers.”
    “It was a team building exercise,” explained head coach Guy Morriss, when asked why his team cleared out all the racks between the hours of 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. “I’m proud of my players for doing that.” 

    Okay, let’s back up. The East Texan ran a story about the arrest of two A &M-Commerce football players in a drug bust. That story was the headline of the 25th issue. Nobody on campus got to read the story. That one nerdy guy who happened to grab a copy just as the stack was dropped off at 7:00 am – well, let’s just say… the severed arm behind the rack at the Drunken Mule Saloon, we think it’s his.
    Police Lt. Jason Bone, (we can’t make this stuff up) is investigating the paper thefts. Bone worked his fingers to the … whatever, sifting through security camera video tapes and found the DeGrate brothers – Anthony and Stephen, pulling papers at the UPD office. He also caught Dakota Burch and London Hamilton swiping copies at the Sam Rayburn Student Center. The DeGrate brothers? We can’t make this stuff up!! What the brothers were doing was NOT great! Sure, they were jocks and the news stories were written by nerds but… how about the 2nd amendment? How about the pen being mightier than the off-tackle-power-play?

    Bone asked Athletic Director Carlton Cooper about the thefts. Cooper responded he didn’t think the players on the tapes planned the thefts. “They are not smart enough to do this on their own,” said Cooper. We can’t make this stuff up! Cooper went on to say “In order to swipe all the papers within thirty minutes, I’d think the whole team would have to be involved.”   

    “I told you,” says Morriss, “It was a no-huddle, fast break, everyone dressed, in positions… doing their assignments. We operated as a unit. We… are… a… team. I’m a proud coach. Besides, the papers are FREE!”
    “Er, no,” explains Lt. Bone. “The first copy is free, if your players can read, it says after that, 25 cents each. Your players are thieves. They’re also involved in a cover up, it appears.” 
    “I was head coach at Kentucky and Baylor,” says Morriss. “How come I can’t get any respect in Commerce, Texas?”
    “I don’t know,” says Bone. “Maybe because you didn’t take a knee at the end of a game at Baylor?  Maybe because people have the right to read? Maybe because my name is Bone and you’re being written about in Silliman on Sports. I don’t know.”