Say it ain't so, Robert

I shouldn’t feel sorry for Robert Joseph, but I do.

A week ago, the graduate of Memorial High School in Port Arthur seemed to have it all. He was on one of the best college football teams in the nation — the mighty UT Longhorns.

He played seven games last year before being sidelined with a shoulder injury for the final six. But he had healed and was expected to compete for a starting job this fall.

Not bad for a 19-year-old kid. Until he blew it with a really boneheaded move.

On June 9 he was arrested in Austin for car burglary. A security guard found him in a vehicle he didn’t own at a downtown Austin hotel.

First he was suspended from the team. Two days later, he announced that he would transfer from UT and look for another place to “get a fresh start.”

"We appreciate everything that Robert contributed to our football program," head coach Mack Brown said in The Houston Chronicle. "We wish him the very best in football and in life."

Nice thoughts, Mack. You were too polite to say what everybody else was thinking: “Uh, Robert, how could you be so dumb?”

The disciplinarian in me says Joseph deserves what he gets. The humanitarian in me remembers what it was like to be 19.

I don’t know about you, but when I was a teenager, what I knew about life could be summed up in two words: not much.

A bunch of years later, I know this: Life is a series of choices … and chances. You might get only one chance for that special job or soul-mate or trip overseas. If you bungle it, you might spend the rest of your life wondering. “What if … ?”

I really hope that Joseph can rebound from this, play some good DB again and get into the NFL, his dream. But this mess sure doesn’t make that goal any easier.