UPDATE (3:35p ET): The Mac-centric site CultofMac.com reported last Thursday that Phil Knight gave 550 laptops at a cost of $1M to Oregon athletes that were specially engraved to prevent theft.
Engraver Joe Mansfield:
The 550 laptops were gifted to the University of Oregon by Nike (Phil Knight).
I pitched the idea of branding the laptops with laser engraving both for aesthetic and security reasons. The laptops have a unique identifier number engraved on the underside for inventory purposes.
Mind-boggling irony given what UO athletes Masoli and Embry stand accused of today.
Lindsay Schnell of the PORTLAND OREGONIAN confirms this afternoon that University of Oregon starting quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, who has served jail time in the past for admitted armed robberies, has been accused of theft in a Univ. of Oregon fraternity house:
The Eugene Police Department confirmed this morning that its officers are investigating an alleged theft, and the student who filed the report has told The Oregonian that the men he accuses in it are University of Oregon quarterback Jeremiah Masoli and wide receiver Garrett Embry.
Fraternity member Max Wolfard filed a police report alleging that the players took two MacBook Pro computers valued at $2,000 apiece and a $900 guitar from the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity house at 812 E. 14th Ave. in Eugene early Sunday.
Wolfard was quoted by the Oregonian about the incident.
“The minute I stepped on the staircase I said to myself, ‘Wow, Masoli and Embry are in our house right now,” Wolfard told The Oregonian on Sunday afternoon. “Masoli has a very distinctive face, very distinctive facial hair — not to mention I see him on TV all the time.”
Wolfard said he didn’t think anything of Masoli and Embry’s presence at first given that he’d seen them at the house before. But when they started to act “suspicious” — and appeared to be hiding something — he demanded to know what they were doing. It was then that Wolfard noticed Embry was carrying what appeared to be Wolfard’s projector screen, valued at $560.
Wolfard said the two players then ran out the back door. Wolfard said Masoli fled north and Embry went east up Agate Street as Wolford chased him. Blocks later, Wolfard says, Embry stopped running, gave him back his projector screen and said, “You’ve got it back, now you better get out of here.”
Wolfard, who said there was no evidence of forced entry at the fraternity house, returned to his room to find his guitar and computer missing and then called police. Max Iantorno, 20, a sophomore, arrived at the fraternity house soon afterward to find his door open and his laptop missing.
The Oregon athletic dept. is, for the moment, silent about the incident. As are the police. Masoli has not been charged or booked for anything and it is not known yet if police have even talked to him.
As noted earlier today on SbB:
In a profile of Masoli on Nov. 9, 2009, Adam Jude of the Eugene Register-Guard wrote:
Masoli is unwilling to discuss the details of his guilty plea for the robberies in and around San Mateo, Calif., in 2005, which resulted in his expulsion from Serra High and a stint in the juvenile detention center.
But, speaking in general terms, Masoli acknowledged the significance of his experience in the detention center.
“I definitely grew up quickly,” he said. “Once you go inside, you definitely have to grow up quickly.”
Juvenile court records are closed, but media accounts and a source close to the school confirmed that Masoli was one of several Serra football players arrested in June 2005, and subsequently expelled, for targeting individuals at San Mateo’s Hillsdale Mall and isolated bus stops in the area, muscling them for money.
A respected student and a team captain, Masoli pleaded guilty to robbery, according to the San Francisco Examiner.
With Masoli’s past guilty pleas to robberies in California, this could get very ugly, very fast.
3:18 pm on January 25th, 2010
Brooks, you gotta do me a favor. Look up the difference between armed and strongarmed. You gotta do this for me. Huge. Quickly.
3:28 pm on January 25th, 2010
what a knucklehead. some people are just life long screwups.
4:01 pm on January 25th, 2010
Ya know……… you try to help out a fellow student by getting his computer and guitar serviced and this is what you get………………….It’s just not fair
4:02 pm on January 25th, 2010
IT WASN’T MASOLI WHO STOLE THE LAPTOPS, IT WAS LANE KIFFEN!!!!!
Anyone who doesn’t realize this, is just wearing cardinal and gold colored glasses. It’s so obvious!
Besides, volquest.com says so, it must be true!!!
5:03 pm on January 25th, 2010
This is obviously another setup by the Beavers, framing our law-abiding players in a brilliantly planned scheme, using a special Masoli mask and voicebox. Will they stop at nothing?
6:57 pm on January 25th, 2010
You can take the boy out of the hood, but it is more problematic to take the hood out of the boy. Gilbert Arenas is another example of privilege that seems to become limitless to many athletes.
7:17 pm on January 25th, 2010
Punching other team’s players, your own team members and fans? The Ducks are a great example of sportsmanship… NOT. They keep proving it and proving it with articles like the one above.
Karma lost you the bowl game boys..
7:21 pm on January 25th, 2010
Mary Ellen… You’re gay.
2:16 am on January 26th, 2010
i bet 5$ that he gets suspended, but miraculously ends up playing the entire season due to “chocolate chip” kelly deciding he’s learned his “lesson”. There is absolutely NO integrity from that school….. They also allow neo-nazi groups to speak and recruit on campus, and refuse to allow the students to actively protest. Don’t believe me???? Google it. Pacifica Forum+University of Oregon+protest
9:03 am on January 26th, 2010
Now we’ll learn the morals of the administration.
11:53 am on January 26th, 2010
No wonder the Ducks lost the Rose Bowl. An out of shape frat guy either caught or at least kept up with the player!
12:36 pm on January 26th, 2010
I’m now thinking I won’t be sending my daughter to OREGON FOR COLLEGE. enough is enough
1:40 pm on January 26th, 2010
All of you detractors will be eating humble pie soon enough. Especially when you hop off of your bandwagon and look into the fact that the reporter who bled the story is a beav and jobless and that no one would touch this story until the Oregonian saw the buzz potential.
Rationalize why Masoli would steal anything when it would readily be given to him by the athletic dept. If he wanted weed or coke that would be given to him by any one of the leeches surrounding him at any point in time.
This is all speculative nonsense. When all of the retractions come in at the end of this Masoli will look like a hero that faced down racial adversity and all of you bumpkin hillbillies from corvallis will have to enjoy you 8-9 win seasons and the idea that some day you might make it to the holiday bowl.
BTW you lost at home twice this season, once to an unranked team. And quizz is not a better rb that James, this evidenced by the fact that James earned 2 YARDS more per attempt and the combined td for qb quizz at OS is 21, while MAZ/James is 23
1:51 pm on January 26th, 2010
Help.. Uncle Phil!
But really, everyone at Nike and U.Oregon knows who runs the show.
Go Ducks
4:48 pm on January 26th, 2010
if guilty do they get a suspension for a bit and then allowed to come back-unless they have better players then the right thing may get done. second thing they should do is give a track scholarship to the frat boy that chased down Embry.
5:23 pm on January 26th, 2010
Holy moly is that your boy masoli, cooking up the burglary like he’s cooking ravioli? Couldn’t get it done in the Rose Bowl, and he can’t get it done as a sneaky thieving crook…. sad day for the criminal ducks… quack.
8:15 pm on January 26th, 2010
You gotta love the cracks from beavs at Masoli and the Ducks for losing in the Rose Bowl. Who won the civil war?, what bowl did the beavs play in?, and how did their bowl game go?
2:47 am on January 27th, 2010
he says they looked suspicious like they were hiding something. hiding a guitar??? how can you hide a guitar? just stick it in your pocket?? lmfao
10:02 am on January 27th, 2010
UofO will have little choice but to lower the boom on JM, most likely restricting him from participating in intramural bowling.
12:39 pm on January 27th, 2010
@kakaclone– He claims that they were actually hiding his projector, which is a little smaller than a laptop and cost about $600.
@Mark in SoCal– Please do not bring up the Pacifica Forum. That is something completely different and is dealing with the fine-line details of the first amendment. No student or Professor wanted that group on campus, but they haven’t been forced to leave because they are meeting and discussing in a state funded facility, which means we must follow state law, which means that anyone has the right of free speech (whether we agree with it or not…)
@PAUL- I really hope that this isn’t the actual reason for not sending your daughter to a wonderful university like UO… Athletics makes up a miniscule percentage of our student population but gains 100% of our publicity, please try to look past it
1:23 am on January 30th, 2010
Players shooting ducks, ad who cheats on wife, fighting at games and campus, stealing, what a bunch hoodrats
9:13 am on January 30th, 2010
How sly is that? To take advantage of the opportunity to catch media attention on 2 people who are in the limelight all the time and try to defame them–sounds like jealousy or envy of those who are accusing and reporting the story.
11:50 pm on January 30th, 2010
~MarkinSoCal~
Dude, you’re full of shit. I attend the school and by law they have to let the forum happen - it’s gov’t property, and…douchebag…uo allows students to protest, demonstrate, etc. So why don’t you take youre ignorant and utterly stupid remarks and go home.
Capiche?
12:42 am on February 4th, 2010
Yea its ironic that the student athletes are LOANED laptops to use, but what this dumbass author fails to realize is that you can sell a laptop laser engraved by uncle phil…but you can sell a frat boy’s laptop, or at least keep it forever.
Brooks, you a hutch nigga
2:54 am on February 8th, 2010
One, there’s still no proof except for the statement made by this Frat. member, his history is news to me. But really, is this all necessary? what happened to being innocent ’til proven guilty.
Two, Really, beavers stop hating, you lost, move on.
Three, Not sending you daughter to U of O due to an alleged theft by a star football player. Do what you want. In fact, do me a better one, send her to the one street hick-town just North of us, we dont need your likes, or your spawns likes at our school anyways.
Thank you for all who read, if he is guilty i will be disappointed, but he isn’t really even that good anyways.
oh P.S. “Beav” “Hood Rat” is a derogatory term towards females who sleep with everyone in the “hood”, but of course how could i expect any better from a cow tippin’, yee hawing, red neck, hick like you. Stay in Corvallis, Your not wanted.
8:48 pm on March 12th, 2010
Ok Max Wolfard is obviously the devil and a beaver fan. He said he saw masoli and embry acting strange. How woods Masoli have stolen a guitar and Max not see it in there hands. Also why would robbers casually walk down stairs where people would be to escape. Fuck the Sigmond Alpha Epsilon fraternity!
8:54 pm on March 12th, 2010
Umm…Guilty pleas by all today..
Go Ducks