It was a bad week for Louisville receivers

By Darrell Laurant  |   Saturday, July 05, 2008  |  Comments( 1 )

Louisville Cardinals
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That will teach Steve Kragthorpe to go out of town.

The University of Louisville football coach left recently for a family vacation in Mexico. A couple of days later, junior wide receiver JaJuan Spillman was arrested for the second time in 18 months on marijuana charges and jailed overnight. Two days later, wide receiver Trent Guy, also a junior, was taken to University Hospital in Louisville after being shot in the back near a downtown nightclub.

According to athletic department spokesman Rocco Gasparro, who had a busy week, Guy's injuries "aren't as severe as they could be. At this time, we expect him to have a full recovery."

The shooting was apparently the result of an altercation that began when another man "touched" Guy's fiancee at the Club Ville. The two were asked to leave, and as Guy and his fiancee were walking to a nearby parking garage, two men opened fire on Guy.

Guy is penciled in as a starting receiver this fall after finishing second on the team last season with 990 all-purpose yards. He caught 11 passes for 177 yards and two touchdowns and averaged 22.2 yards on kickoff returns. With 2007 starters Harry Douglas and Mario Urrutia gone to the NFL, both Guy and Spillman were expected to provide much of the Cardinals' big-play potential at wideout.

One of Guy's high school teammates at West Charlotte, N.C., was former Louisville DB Rod Council, now charged with holding up a convenience store.

Spillman was pulled over just after midnight last Thursday for having an unilluminated license plate. Then, said the Louisville Courier-Journal, he failed a field sobriety test after a police officer smelled pot in his car, after which police found a joint and a .25-caliber pistol with one round in the chamber inside the vehicle.

Ultimately, Spillman was charged with driving under the influence, possession of marijuana, carrying a concealed weapon and having no insurance.

The arrest came just a month after Spillman pleaded guilty to another marijuana charge from January of 2007.

As a freshman in 2006, Spillman finished 11th in the nation with a 27.9-yard kickoff return average and hauled one back 100 yards for a touchdown against Rutgers. In 2007, he became more of a factor in the offense with nine catches for 64 yards and four rushes for 42 before being suspended for most of the season.

"JaJuan's situation will be addressed when coach Kragthorpe returns," Gasparro said Friday.

He was probably sorely tempted to stay in Mexico.
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