Because he said he “needed the money very badly,” according to a police report, Huskies senior linebacker John Timu, a two-year team captain, was suspended for the first two weeks of spring practices, coach Chris Petersen said announced Tuesday.
Last week, a King County judge deferred a misdemeanor charge of vehicle prowling, which will be dismissed in 12 months if Timu stays out of further legal trouble, the Seattle Times reported from court records.
A UW police report said last fall, Timu admitted to stealing two parking passes from cars of athletic department employees. Timu then sold the parking passes to teammates Josh Shirley and Erik Kohler.
Timu was ordered to pay restitution of $250 each to Shirley and Kohler, $150 in court fees and was issued a no-contact order with two UW employees.
“John is doing what he has to do for what he did, and he’s trying to put it behind him,” Michael Hunsinger, Timu’s attorney, told the Times. The incident, Hunsinger added, “is totally out of character for him.”
Timu, a 6-1, 244-pound linebacker from Long Beach, CA., was an honorable mention Pac-12 All-Academic selection who had 14 tackles and a game-sealing interception in the Huskies’ bowl-game win over BYU. In April, Timu an American ethnic studies major with a minor in anthropology, became UW’s first student-athlete to win the school’s prestigious Brett E. Baldwin Memorial Academic Scholarship for anthropology.
But because he was a student-athlete, under NCAA rules he wasn’t allowed to keep the $1,200 award.
“John is everything you could ask for in a student-athlete,” then-coach Steve Sarkisian told the Times. “He’s a role model not only for our guys on the team, but for every student on this campus.”
Also missing from Washington’s first practice under Petersen was RB Jesse Callier, who had academic work to finish, according to Petersen. Already suspended indefinitely were QB Cyler Miles and WR Damore’ea Stringfellow, who were charged with assault in February after an incident following a Super Bowl party.
3 Comments
Did what happened to Myles and Stringfellow have no impact on Timu? Very disappointing to see this happen after the arrests of two potential starters. Coach Pete’s first order of business at spring practice will have to be laying down the law on what’s expected from players when the agree to be a Husky. It isn’t a right and it isn’t a rise in social status. It’s a privilege that shouldn’t be taken for granted.
unbelievable – really un-damn-believable – that Timu was not allowed to keep the $1200 academic scholarship. the ncaa model is broken beyond repair, it is totally hypocritical, outdated, and absurd, and gets more so as the revenue increases. I’m not excusing Timu, but the ncaa system stinks to high heaven.
the theft happened last fall, jafabian, during the great white sark regime, and before miley cyrus and his bronco-loving sidekick decided to rassle some giddy seahawk fan.