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Report: NCAA Running Back Played Entire Season While Being Wanted on Domestic Violence Warrant

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The NFL is often criticized for its incompetence in handling players with domestic violence issues.

Well, move over NFL, because the NCAA and Florida International University both just stepped up and said, “hold my beer.”

Panthers running back Shawndarrius Phillips, it turns out, played an entire season of college football while on an outstanding warrant for domestic battery by strangulation, the Miami Herald reported Thursday.

Which, in the most generous benefit-of-the-doubt interpretation, means that the school didn’t know about the incident, which occurred in June and allegedly involved Phillips choking his ex-girlfriend.

According to the Herald, an FIU representative reached late Thursday “said the program had no comment on Phillips’ current status or whether anyone with the football program knew about the incident.”

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A court in Broward County issued the warrant Aug. 24, eight days before the Panthers kicked off their football season, one in which they went 8-4 and earned a spot in the Bahamas Bowl.

But it wasn’t until Phillips went to travel with the team to the game that law enforcement finally caught up with him.

It is here where we note that FIU is located in Miami, which is in the next county over from Broward, Miami-Dade. It’s not as if the cops had to go out of their way to find him.

The Herald told the tale of the events of June 17 that led to the arrest warrant being issued.

Should the NCAA punish FIU for allowing a player with an outstanding warrant to play?

“(The alleged victim) said a discussion about who she was dating a month after their breakup turned physical when Phillips, who lists at 5-foot-10 and 225 pounds, began choking her with his right hand,” the report said.

“As she struggled to speak or even breathe, she said, ‘Phillips got her on her feet and walked her back towards his couch until she fell back on the couch,’ according to the affidavit,” the Herald reported.

“Scratching his hand, she said, did no good and he remained atop her. She claimed Phillips got off her, saying, ‘Don’t you ever speak to me or my family again.’ He then ordered her out, saying, ‘If you don’t leave, I’m going to break your jaw.'”

Phillips was arraigned and posted $6,000 bond; he is still listed on the roster for the Bahamas Bowl, though whether that will remain so — accused criminal defendants are not generally allowed to leave the state, much less the country — is still an open question as the Dec. 21 game approaches.

Phillips ran for 393 yards this season — including 115 in a single game against UMass, a 63-24 win on Sept. 15 — and scored four touchdowns.

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FIU, under Butch Davis, went 8-5 (5-3 Conference USA) and lost the Gasparilla Bowl 28-3 to Temple in 2017. It was Davis’ first season coaching the team; he repeated his 8-4 regular-season record as coach this season.

2017 was the school’s first bowl appearance and first winning season since 2011.

A victory in the Bahamas Bowl would be just the second bowl win in the school’s 17 seasons as a Division I FBS squad; the first came in 2010 in the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl, when the team capped off a 7-6 season by defeating Toledo 34-32.

All of this, however, takes a backseat to a developing scandal not just at FIU but in the Broward County Sheriff’s Office and in Miami law enforcement more generally, as a football player with an outstanding warrant somehow managed not to get arrested despite being very publicly visible with regard to his location on Saturdays.

When they say a running back is “elusive,” this isn’t quite what they have in mind.

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Boston born and raised, Fox has been writing about sports since 2011. He covered ESPN Friday Night Fights shows for The Boxing Tribune before shifting focus and launching Pace and Space, the home of "Smart NBA Talk for Smart NBA Fans", in 2015. He can often be found advocating for various NBA teams to pack up and move to his adopted hometown of Seattle.
Boston born and raised, Fox has been writing about sports since 2011. He covered ESPN Friday Night Fights shows for The Boxing Tribune before shifting focus and launching Pace and Space, the home of "Smart NBA Talk for Smart NBA Fans", in 2015. He can often be found advocating for various NBA teams to pack up and move to his adopted hometown of Seattle.
Birthplace
Boston, Massachusetts
Education
Bachelor of Science in Accounting from University of Nevada-Reno
Location
Seattle, Washington
Languages Spoken
English
Topics of Expertise
Sports




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