When I heard that two members of the men's basketball team were arrested for dining and dashing at a Village Inn early Thursday morning, I was hoping for a really interesting story. Maybe something like this:
Maybe Burwell is excited about going to Brazil and getting some more playing time, and Fitzpatrick is standing up and yelling "YOU'RE GROWNS UP AND YOU'RE GROWNS UP AND YOU'RE GROWNS UP!" *waves jacket, nearly falls off table, gets asked to leave*
But hang on, Voltaire, that's not what happened. Apparently they just tried to slip out, a couple of plainclothes cops were sitting in the next booth over, and you can guess how it all ended.
I don't think the two are going to be severely disciplined. It doesn't fit with what Stan Heath has done with previous misdemeanors, and besides, it's such a ridiculous thing to do that we're more amused by it than anything else. (For me, it's right there with the time Jon Chivas threw a brick off his eighth-floor balcony at Fontana Hall and hit a police cruiser as the funniest/dumbest crime I can remember a USF athlete allegedly committing.) I doubt Village Inn wants to deal with going to court over $29.91 and might just settle for getting their money, so the biggest thing Fitzpatrick and Burwell are really guilty of is incredibly bad judgment.
For the record, Toro Grande is wondering if they were there by themselves, and notes that this Village Inn is where all the party people in south Tampa go after a full night of drinking $12 cocktails and hitting on each other in the bars on Howard Avenue. That might explain why they didn't just go to the one on 30th Street near campus.