Coach stands by accused player

ROBERT TURBEVILLE
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

BRYANT -- Willie Whitmore was an inmate on Tuesday, a newspaper headline on Thursday and booed by Bryant fans on Friday.
But when he walked off the field he was a hero to his teammates for his play and defended by his coach.
In his first game since being charged with aggravated assault and being released on a $15,000 bond, Whitmore ran for 214 yards and 2 touchdowns on 31 carries and intercepted a pass to lead Tex arkana over Bryant 27-13 Friday night.
All was not perfect for Whitmore, a 17-year-old senior. He fumbled three times, was intercepted once and some Bryant fans booed when his name was announced as Texarkana's starting quarterback.
Those fans apparently didn't agree with Coach Denny Burdine's decision to play Whitmore after Whitmore was arrested at school Tuesday for allegedly striking a 16-year-old girl with a broken bottle during an Oct. 14 disturbance.
Burdine defended his decision to play Whitmore minutes after the game. He said Whitmore, an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette All-Arkansas defensive back last fall, was acting in self-defense during an altercation on the parking lot of Blockbuster Video on Texas Boulevard in Texarkana, Texas.
Had Whitmore been about 50 feet away on the Arkansas side of Texas Boulevard, he could have been charged as a juvenile. Instead, he was charged as an adult because 17-year-olds are considered adults under Texas law.
"There's a lot more to this story than what everybody's getting," Burdine said. "That will come out in the next week or two, I can promise you that. Otherwise, I would have to take more action than what I did. I know more than everybody else knows. And I know I'm catching a lot of flak over it.
"Some of our other players were involved in that. But he gets all the bad publicity, and it's really hurt Willie. It's hurt his recruiting and everything else. But you can see he's a great athlete. He really is."
Whitmore reportedly needed eight steel stitches to close a wound in his head after being struck over the head with a beer bottle during the altercation.
A news release from Texarkana, Texas, police said Whitmore approached the victim, yelled an obscenity, then struck her in the face with a broken bottle. The victim received 31 stitches for a laceration between the eyes and under the left eye, the release said.
Burdine, who put Whitmore off-limits to the media after the game, wasn't the only one defending his decision to play Whitmore. Bryant Coach Daryl Patton said he "would have probably done the same thing" if he was Burdine, and Texarkana assistant principal Jesse Keeton said Whitmore is innocent until proven guilty, therefore he should be allowed to play.
Keeton said the consensus among Texarkana's student body was that Whitmore be allowed to play, but he said some parents and citizens disagreed.
"Willie is a good kid," Keeton said. "He's a good kid that just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Keeton said Whitmore's situation reminded him of a similar incident involving a star football player at Liberty Eylau, Texas.
"They suspended a kid from playing about seven, eight years ago," Keeton said. "He had a lot of college people looking at him. They found out he wasn't even a part of it. But people just cut him off. They didn't want him anymore. That was unfortunate for him. ... He's still suffering from that today because he was not able to go to school. It just stymied his growth and crippled him."
No time was wasted in getting Whitmore in on the action Friday.
He stood not far from Texarkana's goal line as the middle deep man on the opening kickoff return, bouncing his knee nervously with his hands on his hips.
Whitmore returned the opening kickoff 16 yards to the 20, then gained 37 yards on two consecutive carries. He had 96 yards on 17 carries by halftime, but also had two first-quarter fumbles and was intercepted late in the second quarter.
He played better in the second half, scoring on runs of 1 and 31 yards, the 31-yarder giving Texarkana a 20-13 lead with 2:43 left in the game.
Still, Burdine said he could tell Whitmore's play was affected by the arrest and ensuing attention. Whitmore entered the game off consecutive 300-yard rushing performances, including a school-record 353 against Lake Hamilton on Oct. 13.

This article was published on Sunday, October 29, 2000

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