MacIntyre comments on Kronshage situation
BOULDER, Colo. - During a sleepless Thursday night, Colorado head coach Mike MacIntyre tried to get to the bottom of the situation involving Class of 2013 offensive line signee Sam Kronshage, a recent graduate from The Woodlands (Texas) High.
Multiple newspaper reports linked Kronshage with a racist comment on Twitter, which was aimed toward a rival high school baseball player.
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During a lengthy conversation with MacIntyre, Kronshage explained that he was at a graduation party and was in the pool when someone used his phone without his permission to send the tweet. MacIntyre also received a detailed e-mail from Sam's parents explaining the situation.
"I have to trust the young man and trust what is going on here. I do believe them," MacIntyre said. "We're in the process of trying to make sure what we've been told is definitely real and go from there. I didn't even sleep last night and I know they haven't either."
"The time I have known Sam and the family, they seem like phenomenal people," he added. "If his character is damaged, he is going to rebuild it. If his reputation is damaged, he is going to rebuild it. Time will definitely tell on that."
The tweet was removed from his Twitter account as soon as he was aware it existed, Kronshage told MacIntyre. Kronshage tried multiple times to apologize to the rival baseball player.
"If I didn't have teenagers of my own, I wouldn't even know this Twitter and Facebook stuff and how they mess with each other but this is totally something we do not condone at all," MacIntyre said. "There is no call for any discrimination against any races or other situations in society, period."
MacIntyre said this "extremely unfortunate" situation will provide a teachable moment for his team and added he is thinking about banning his players from having Twitter accounts.
"You make one bad mistake and it follows you," MacIntyre said. "They are in the limelight and I don't think it is worth it."
"When you deal with young people it is a growing process and that is why I enjoy what I do, helping young people grow into the men they are supposed to be," he added. "And this is definitely a hard, hard, hard, wrong way of having it happen for that young man."
Additional notes -
Sam's uncle is Nigerian. Kronshage verbally committed to the Buffs last June when head coach Jon Embree, who is African-American, was still leading CU's program.
Kronshage turned down offers from Duke, Louisiana Tech, SMU and Texas State when he joined the Buffs' commit list. He was named first-team all-Greater Houston as a senior and was selected to participate in the International Bowl in early February.
MacIntyre confirmed running back Davien Payne is academically ineligible and will not be back with the Buffaloes this fall.
"That is unfortunate for him and us," MacIntyre said.
Captains were voted on when the players returned for summer school on June 2 but "eight or nine" players received a lot of votes so a re-vote will take place on June 18.
"I am going to put up those guys' names and then they are going to re-vote for four people so I'll be able to announce [captains] on the 19th," MacIntyre explained. "It is good, there were eight or nine guys they thought were leaders but you can't have eight or nine captains."
MacIntyre said "a couple" of the players that received numerous votes for captain are juniors.