DEVELOPING: Oregon State Ace Requests Leave From Team

A lot of college baseball fans were thinking that Oregon State would be one of the teams to make their way out of the regionals and make their way to Omaha for the College World Series. And that they would do it behind the arm of Luke Heimlich...

Thursday, however, in a story in the Oregonian, it was made public that Heimlich had failed to register as a sex offender in the state of Oregon- as a result of an incident when he was 15 against a 6-year-old family member. Heimlich didn't want to be a distraction, asked to be excused, and released a statement through his attorney:

"I understand that many people now see me differently, but I hope that I can eventually be judged for the person I am today," Heimlich said in his statement. "I'm so proud of our team's accomplishment and don't want to be a distraction. Therefore, I've respectfully requested to be excused from playing at this time."

Here's the early returns from KOIN-TV

The piece by Danny Moran and Brad Schmidt is a great piece of journalism- and you can read the whole thing here. But there's one passage that sticks out when you read it:

Baseball coach Pat Casey declined to comment. Scott Barnes, Oregon State's athletic director, would not specifically address Heimlich's case, citing student privacy laws. Nor would Barnes, who assumed his role in February, say when the athletic department learned that Heimlich was a registered sex offender.

What does it say when a routine background check on a story says something about what a university does on a daily basis...???

Or, more accurately, what a university doesn't do...