Tra'Von Chapman suspended by Pitt after alleged assault

Well, how's that for a daily double?

After word broke of football players Eric Williams and Drew Carswell being kicked off Pitt's team, another interesting nugget came out - Tra'Von Chapman has been suspended for an alleged assault. And if you haven't heard yet, it ain't pretty:

Chapman allegedly assaulted a woman at his residence on Friday, April 26. According to a criminal complaint filed in Portage County Municipal Court by Kent police, Chapman “pulled the hair of (the alleged victim) and grabbed her around the neck, leaving marks.” He also allegedly prevented her from leaving the scene of the alleged assault, according to Kent police.

Here's another article from an Ohio newspaper with a few more details.

Um, yeah.

This is just awful, awful stuff if true. I'll reserve judgment for now, but man - this sounds pretty bad. Head coach Paul Chryst was right to suspend him until we get some more information, but then what? If it's true, where does Pitt go?

In my opinion, the team may just have to boot him, if we're looking at all the options. If that really happened (and again, we don't have the details here), how does Pitt justify keeping him around? They'd essentially be saying that it's okay if players do that, but not a coach, considering Michael Haywood was fired for an assault charge against a female.

Coaches are surely more accountable than players, but only to a degree. Something that egregious shouldn't be overlooked and it would be a bit of a double standard, wouldn't it?

The other problem for Chapman is that this is happening/breaking at the same time as the drug story. There's plenty of backlash against Chryst and you can bet that he doesn't want to look like a pushover. And if we're talking about standards, would Pitt really keep someone if they committed an assault against a female but kick the guys hanging out with a drug dealer off the team?

But we've still got to see what details emerge. I'm not going to crucify the kid for a charge I don't know anything about and that's not fair to him. But the initial report doesn't sound good. At all.

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