As a prep athlete at Enid High School, Austin Box led the Plainsmen to the Class 6A state championship game. He was a whiz kid on the gridiron, but now he's making news after allegedly taking a wiz outside of a toilet bowl.
The sophomore linebacker for the Sooners was arrested early Feb. 13 for disorderly conduct in Bricktown. The 21-year-old Box, who was reportedly standing below the Skky Bar entrance, walked to a balcony corner and tinkled on barstools outside the nightclub, according to The Associated Press.
"(He) stated that he had to go and they made him leave the bar," according to the Oklahoma City Police Department report.
As a redshirt freshman, the linebacker also was cited for outraging public decency outside of Fat Sandwich Company last year in Norman, according to The Oklahoma Daily.
After the latest news leaked to Garfield County, Box's hometown paper took him to the tool shed. Check out this column by Kevin Hassler, associate editor of the Enid News & Eagle, telling the athlete to act his age (and not his jersey number, which is 12, incidentally):
"These brushes with the law haven't just happened since Box has been at college, a time when many kids are away from home for the first time and may do things as they stretch the limits of their newfound freedom," Hassler wrote. "Box's run-ins with the law have been well-documented and began when he was in high school, where he was a football and baseball star.
"Enough is enough. The Enid community doesn't need this. Your family doesn't need this. Your school doesn't need this. Your team doesn't need this. And, you don't need this."
Nice lecture by Hassler, a recent inductee in the Oklahoma Press Association's Quarter Century Club. And he's right: OU fans like to say their football team is No. 1. They just don't like to read about No. 1 in the newspaper.
