DANIEL WONG/ Daily Bruin Senior Staff DeShaun
Foster has been tackled by the NCAA for an alleged gift
violation.
By Scott Bair and Hannah
Gordon
Daily Bruin Reporters
The spotlight blinded UCLA head coach Bob Toledo Thursday after
practice.
Literally.
As Toledo walked toward the hungry pack of reporters, he was
greeted by the luminescent glare of television cameras and
microphones looking to ask questions about DeShaun Foster’s
“extra benefits” violation through his alleged
borrowing of a sport-utility vehicle as reported in multiple news
sources.
“My whole life has been turned upside down: all the media
attention, all the phone calls. I’m trying to get ready for a
football game,” Toledo said of the chaos since
yesterday’s announcement of Foster’s ineligibility.
Toledo did not hide his displeasure with his star player
Thursday after practice.
“It’s a reflection on him,” Toledo said.
“It’s not a reflection on his family, because they were
extremely upset. They did everything they could for him. I still
think DeShaun’s a good kid.”
The Fosters could not be reached for comment.
Toledo balked at the notion that the athletic department had
failed to teach the players.
“It’s extremely disappointing. We work very hard to
educate these young men,” Toledo said, “We have
attorneys from the university, I’ve had the NFL talk to them.
They talk about drugs, gambling, agents. I just talked again (in
the team meeting).”
Of course the temptations are greater for a likely first-round
draft pick like Foster. But Toledo would allow for no excuses.
“I talk to them as a team, as a group of seniors, as
juniors and individually I talk to the top guys one on one,”
he added.
Yet, some players do not recall the meetings so clearly.
“I think it’s at the beginning of the year,”
redshirt freshman Manuel White said. “I don’t know, it
might have been my freshman year. I know they do give us a long
meeting about it.”
No matter what the coaches say, they ultimately depend on the
player’s judgment.
“We’re men. We know what’s right and
wrong,” White added.
Toledo was perhaps most disappointed that the negative media
attention has overshadowed the game.
“It’s a team that had good chemistry, good
attitude,” he said. “Yesterday was pretty difficult for
them but today they bounced back.”
The team was told to treat Foster’s absence like an
injury.
“We always tell this team that if anybody gets hurt you
gotta step up,” offensive coordinator Kelly Skipper said.
“Nobody really knows what happened so we just have to move
on, treat it like an injury.”
How the distraction will affect the game is unclear.
“We’ll find out. They might come out flat as heck.
The might come out fired up,” Toledo said.
Although the coaches emphasized that one player does not make a
football team, one can distract the other 85.