USNA football team boots controversial player - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

USNA football team boots controversial player

The Naval Academy football team has dismissed a star player who was kept on earlier this year even after testing positive for having smoked marijuana, a spokesman confirmed Friday.

Standout slotback Midshipman 3rd Class Marcus Curry was kicked off the team for “not complying with school rules,” said athletics department spokesman Scott Strasemeier, who could not give further details because of privacy regulations.

Academy football coach Ken Niumatalolo removed Curry from the team after Curry allegedly did not tell the truth about why he had missed a curfew — the latest in what has been described as a series of honor or conduct offenses, according to a source with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to discuss it. Curry has told academy officials he plans to resign, presumably to escape another round of disciplinary action, Navy Times has learned.

The story was first reported Friday in the Annapolis Capital newspaper.

Curry’s story crossed out of the sports pages in February, when a regular Navy drug test found he had used marijuana in December. But Curry told academy officials he hadn’t known what was he was smoking, sources said, so he technically had not violated the Navy’s drug abuse policy. Although much of the Naval Academy’s chain of command then supported kicking Curry out, superintendent Vice Adm. Jeffrey Fowler decided he could stay.

The story caused current and former midshipmen, including some who had been separated for their own drug offenses, to allege there is a double standard for “protected” mids, including minority students and star athletes.