Tennessee junior forward Wayne Chism might have violated rules for student-athletes by appearing in a series of videos with friend Mike Norton, who owns All Pro Truck Tire Service. In the videos, Chism wears a shirt bearing the tire company’s logo. He also used profanity and cracked at least one racist joke. School officials demanded that Chism remove the videos from YouTube and Facebook when they learned about them. GoVolsXtra.com collected opinions from Chism, who averaged 13.7 points and 8.0 rebounds per game last season, about the videos.
“I didn’t ever think anyone would go snitch on me like that,’’ Chism said in the final video posted on YouTube. “I need to stop making videos because I didn’t think anybody would call the University of Tennessee basketball office and talk about, ‘He (Chism) is cussing a lot on YouTube.’ ”
Chism appeared in the various videos with Norton, and in a few he cursed as he made jokes about such every day activities as driving a stick-shift truck.
Chism also made a self-deprecating joke about the difference between a white man and black man running through a neighborhood as he worked out on an elliptical trainer in another video.
Chism was shown in short videos riding a four-wheeler, slinging tires, riding and jumping a bicycle at a skate park, driving a truck, playing video games and eating wings.
“To the people who liked the videos we appreciate you watching,’’ Chism said on the final video. “You’ll look on Facebook and YouTube and see all the videos gone.
“The people that called and snitched on me, not cool. But I guess I appreciate that because they said they don’t want to make my image bad.’’
The videos clearly were a bad idea that likely is harmless. However, the incident re-emphasizes that players must scrutinize nearly every action to determine whether they are jeopardizing their eligibility.
