This past Sunday morning, at 1:01 am, Malcolm Marable, who plays football for the Beavers, was pulled over and was ticketed for speeding. Marable was caught driving 104 mph on I-5, in a car that didn’t belong to him, and without proper documentation. He was given a ticket, reportedly a fine of $1,148 bucks.
This offseason hasn’t been kind to Mike Riley and the Beavers. Riley’s already had to suspend two other defensive backs for getting into trouble, and then something like this happens. Marable’s been suspended indefinitely now though, and will have to pay the price for his poor choices.
Unless you’re a die-hard Beavers fan or you are a fan of sports blogs and follow them closely, you may not have heard much about this story involving Marable. I mean, yeah, it’s getting media attention, but just not getting that much media attention. And with the coverage that the story is getting hasn’t been very in depth at all. It’s had a feel of “okay, here is the idiot move that Malcolm Marable made over the weekend, now you can proceed with your day as regularly scheduled.”
If John Canzano has written a column about it, I haven’t seen it yet. (He probably mentioned it on his radio show though, but I don’t listen, so I wouldn’t know.) Isaac and Suke probably have mentioned it as well, but they didn’t have hundreds of listeners calling in to show their disgust and outrage about it, like what happened when Cliff Harris got busted. Everyone has sort of moved on from the Marable story and don’t really care anymore. Well, except for Duck Fans, of course.
I was on Twitter on Tuesday night and saw this tweet from a Duck season ticket holder, who said this, “What! A Beavers football player driving 100+ MPH on I-5??? Hahaha. Beaver Nation is sure quiet about this one!”
Look, he’s obviously taking a shot at Beaver fans and all the grief they gave Duck fans with the whole Cliff Harris saga. And it’s actually a good little jab at the Beavs, if you ask me. Nothing to get too hot and bothered about at all. Just some good old fashioned trash talk.
But it got me thinking of the bigger picture with Duck and Beaver fans. After a little more research on Twitter on Tuesday night, it appeared to me that there were more than a few Duck fans that seemed to be actually upset and somewhat offended that Mike Riley and the OSU football team wasn’t (and still isn’t, for that matter) getting hammered for this in the news and local media. But why do Duck fans even care, I ask. What’s the point? Duck fans always confuse me a little bit when they get like this.
Let me make something clear, before I continue. I don’t consider myself a “Duck fan” or a “Beaver fan.” My dad has been a Beaver fan all his life, and my sister is a die-hard Duck fan that loves them so much, she’ll travel with them when they go bowl games and places like Knoxville and Ann Arbor. I have multiple reasons to root for both schools. So please spare me the accusations of being a “hater” or a “Beaver honk”.
The game has changed here in Oregon. The Oregon Ducks and the Oregon State Beavers used to enjoy similar amounts of success (even though most Duck fans still won’t admit this if you ask them about it), and now they do not. The Ducks have taken the “next step” as a college football program and the Beavers have not. Duck fans don’t give a sh!t about the Beavers, and Beaver fans don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to state bragging rights. The programs are so far apart now, that the past three Civil War games haven’t even been fun to watch. Unless you were a Duck fan of course.
With all the newly found success and fame, Duck fans everywhere are going to have to start learning how to deal with it better. And by better, I mean that they can’t get super-offended at every single little thing everyone in the world says about their beloved football team or player or coach, and then lash out at everyone they see as not on their “side”.
When fan bases are super sensitive to every little criticism that they find on the internet, all it does is make them look bad and invites more criticism. It’s part of the reason that I believe Duck fans have the general reputation that they currently do. Some of the Duck fans I’ve seen and talked to have learned how to handle the success. Some, though, have a lot to learn.
This incident with Malcolm Marable getting pulled over is a perfect example of what I’m talking about with Duck fans. Listen, of course Cliff Harris getting pulled over is going to get more attention than when some dude named Malcolm Marable does the same thing. Harris was an All-American player who was a star on a top 5 ranked team in the entire country, and Marable plays for the Oregon State Beavers. Read that last sentence again please. Keep reading that sentence if you need to. Oh and let’s add the fact that Darren Thomas, the star QB of the team was also in the car when Harris was pulled over. Really? Sorry folks, that story is making the lead on SportsCenter every time. Is this as obvious to anyone else as it is to me?
Also, let me say this. It’s going to be a very long and tiring life if every time the Ducks or Chip Kelly or Phil Knight gets a little bit of criticism sent their way, “Duck Nation” collectively freaks out, then logs onto Twitter and blasts anyone who dares to disagree with them about their beloved team. Duck Nation is just going to have to get used to it. It’s part of the territory.
If you want to be one of the premier college football programs in this country, you’re going to have to learn to deal with some of the “haters.” If you want all of the love and the respect and all of the feel-good stories on ESPN, you’re going to have to deal with the John Canzanos and SportsByBrooks’ of the world applying a little pressure every once in a while. If you want to be LeBron James, you’re going to have to deal with going back to Cleveland every once in a while. Am I making any sense?
So Duck fans everywhere, I beg of you to, can everyone just chill out a little bit with this Malcolm Marable getting pulled over story. He’s been suspended by Riley, just like Cliff Harris was suspended by Chip Kelly. Please stop talking about how there have been just as many players from OSU on the police blotter as there have been players from Oregon. Yes, it’s true, the numbers of bad apples from both OSU and Oregon are pretty even, with the Beavers maybe even ending up with more. But the numbers just don’t really matter that much when making your argument.
The fact remains that as long as Oregon is ranked in the top 10 and is a nationally known college football powerhouse, no amount of Beaver players being arrested is going to get as much scrutiny and attention, both positive and negative, as players who wear those green and yellow jerseys (and all the other many colors that they wear from time to time) will get when they mess up.
Oregon Ducks fans everywhere, you are the LeBron James of college football in the state of Oregon. No one is disputing that. But please stop acting so petty just because you have to take a little more heat than your “little brothers” down the road in Corvallis.
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