You may have seen the note at the bottom of the article on the O-line on Darius Patton being dead. Patton signed with Pitt in 2011. Patton was a speedy, undersized receiver expected to have a significant role down the line in FraudGraham’s offense. While he did see some action as a freshman, his most notable incident was collapsing in training camp — for reasons never disclosed. He left the team this past spring for –again — undisclosed reasons. The reasonable assumption being that he decided that he wouldn’t fit in the offense Chryst was running. Yet he did not end up at another school.
Sadly, it appears that it was a suicide.
The death was confirmed a suicide by Southwest Regional Police Chief Riley Smoot, who said police were called to the residence at 7:13 a.m.
The official time of death was 8:06 a.m. Mercer County Coroner J. Bradley McGonigle ruled the cause of death asphyxiation by hanging.
Patton was a 2011 graduate of Poland High School where he played football and basketball, and ran track for two years. Considered the Mahoning Valley’s top football prospect for the 2011 class, Patton earned a scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh.
In his mother’s house, which had to be unbelievably tragic if she was the one to find him.
The reasons for his suicide are unknown. Obviously things have been a mess for him if he did not even transfer to a MAC school or YSU.
His father, who was a running back under Jim Tressel at YSU, is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute a variety of drugs. That wouldn’t help matters.
Really a sad, sad story. Does not PITT follow up with any of these kids that get discarded for whatever reason. (like he doesn’t fit into a particular system or whatever).
The link I posted on the other story about Tennessee and Graham has a video of Darius wearing his PITT hat and navy blue shirt and gold tie. Must have been his letter of intent day.
He was so excited to be coming to PITT.
You would like to think we could have done something, like maybe offer counseling or something. Help him get enrolled in another school. Maybe we did, idk, it’s very sad indeed.
Poland is a beautiful town…heaven I trust is happy to have him.
Woodall 2-10, Patterson 0-5
Pitt down 2 with the ball 28 seconds left
Tie up, Panther ball on alternate possession with 4.8 seconds left
Hope this ends up being a character builder and not a disiaster.
Hey, I’ve been there brother, they came back and won big in OT brother!!! By about 10 in fact!!
Young team, very young team, gonna be some ups and downs. Team will grow and should be a good team in Feb!!!
GO PITT
GO PITT
and once agein the big east will take it in the shorts they will be down 2 teams agein.
so were does big east go next
http://m.bizjournals.com/baltimore/news/2012/11/13/under-armour-ceo-kevin-plank-selling.html?r=full
In this post dated for this past Tuesday, Kevin Plank – UMD grad and UnderArmour CEO – is selling some 1.3 million shares of UnderArmour stock. As this post mentions, if it was sold at market rate last week, the shares were worth about $65 million.
The timing is interesting, and it’s touched off tons of rumors that Plank may have sold the stock to help foot part of the bill for the conference move. Nothing has been confirmed and even if this was the case, Plank may still draw tons of criticism for it because as Frank MD noted above, University of Maryland just dropped a number of other sports.
Academics plays a large part in who gets in the ACC that is why L VILLE wont be brought on board.
but U CONN has no major tv market.
i think chas or reed needs to give us a new post for this subject.
was rated all most has high as pitt did they lose there standing.
when pitt went to acc u conn and retgurs were the only outher schools ACC would consider.
so when did u conn lose it.
What a shame. Really, I know it’s about the money these days.
60 years with Duke, NC, NC St Clemson, a lot of fantastic hoops years and rivalries, and some really good football years. (Yes, I know, not the past couple), but, they have had.
Now, Maryland vs. Minnesota, Maryland vs. Iowa????
How’s this move going to get them better???
The guy has allready thrown them all the money they need, hasn’t worked.
They’ll get a couple more million a year. How will that help??? Why doesn’t this guy just give them the 65 million he’s selling his stock for??
This really looks like one guy with money, running a whole sports department.
He allready ruined any sense of tradition with those hideous uniforms, that most Maryland fans don’t even like.
Guess you might as well just burn it all down!!!
That’s the way it is these days???
Ya, maybe, doesn’t mean I have to like it!!!!
Maryland vs Illinois???????
RU to ACC.
Edge goes to ACC.
MD will be bottom feeder but they bring DC and Blt Tv sets.
ACC should bring both RU and UCONN.
espn did report Pitt loss. Maybe they can’t count.
Lastly…thousands of empty seats in Morganhole to watch the lousiest 50-49 game ever played.
PSU and Navy both fit the academics and together make up the loss of MD’s geographical patch. Basketball would take a hit but football would improve. With the addition of Pitt and ‘Cuse, the basketball in the league will still improve overall. UCONN does not bring much to the table in my opinion in either sport. Football does not have a natural recruiting ground and once the Calhoun ties to the basketball program fade you have to wonder if it will still succeed.
On another note, Tavon Austin is wearing the correct number on his jersey. I have not seen such a dazzling combination of speed and juking since the Dorsett days. Austin runs for 344 yards, WHAT?!?!?!? Now the down side of course is that WVU still lose the game in the whaning seconds and then the final slap in the face for Tavon is that Montel Harris, from Temple no less, runs for 351 yards, WHAT, WHAT!?!?!?!?!? AND SEVEN TDs to eclipse his performance. This morning, Austin doesn’t even get any headline press for his efforts in the Washington Post down here in DC because of Harris’s numbers. See it could be worst, we could all be West Virginia football fans. Win the first 5, lose the last 5, UGH.
Tossing Thabeets..PSU to leave Big Ten for ACC?? Only if they want to lose money…payout for Big Ten is 23 million+ per school…ACC is I think about 12 million per school…there is a reason Maryland wants to leave and might pay 50 million to do so.
For all intents and purposes, is the Big East conference pretty much dissolved after this season?
ACC is $50 million per school – just approved this summer. Md and FSU were the only dissenters.
