John Dufresne

Texas A&M Commerce coach: He's proud of players for stealing papers

Nearly 2,000 copies of the Texas A&M Commerce campus newspaper were stolen this week by members of the school's football team and the team's coach says he's proud of the players for stealing them.

The newspaper had a story at the top of its front page about team members being arrested in a drug bust.   Two team members were caught on video stealing some of the newspaper from inside the lobby of the campus police department.

Coach Guy Morris, left, reportedly told investigators during an interview that, "I'm proud of my players doing that … this was the best team building exercise we have ever done."

James Bright, editor of the East Texan, thought the coach's comments were "appalling."

"I don't understand how a head coach of a division 2 football team can say things like this -- can advocate his players committing a theft," Bright said.

In his report on the case, KDFW reporter James Rose interviewed the school's president, Dr. Dan Jones, who said discipline would be handed out from the coach on down. Morris, who attended Sam Houston High School in Arlington and played at TCU,  formerly was the coach at Baylor University.

- Lance Murray (and thanks to Joe in Cheese)