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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 7, 2003)
&OU0 Oi/cics/ irfTl ^ 'z~ ■F >k <4m) 2fc Jp, EUGENE SPRINGFIELD 824 Charnelton 5851 Main St. 686-5808 746-7666 free slice of pizza with the purchase of a Regular Slice w4n“r 16" XTra-Large 2-item Pizza PLUS 2 free soft drinks & 1 order of tricky stlx >oo Not valid with any other otlerj EXPIRES 12/19/03 f'iPIzza Pipeline GET READY FOR THE PLACES TO SHOP • THINGS TO DO • FOOD, TRAVEL, ENTERTAINMENT, ACTIVITIES • GIFT GUIDES TWO ISSUES TO ENJOY! ^ 1st Issue - November 21st ^ 2nd Issue - December 8th Oregon Daily Emerald You're always close to campus. --- -» www.dailyemerald.com WOODS continued from page 5B favor from Bellotti and defensive co ordinator Nick Aliotti. "It's not often at all that you get a Division I coach like that to stick up for you, write a let ter in your favor. I thank and contin ue to thank coach Bellotti for the op portunity he gave me. "He stuck his neck out for me a lot." It has been three months since Woods first stepped onto campus as a student-athlete. I le's played in nine games for the Ducks, gradually seeing more playing time each week. He started his first game on Oct. 3 against Utah, and has been a key piece of the secondary puzzle. "Any time it's a junior college player, you hope you can get him close enough to play at the level of a junior as soon as possible, and it's very hard to predict that," secondary coach John Neal said. "I think we've got more out of Rodney than the normal junior college player because he played so much more earlier on than we expected. "It's just unfortunate, because we would have loved to have him since he was a freshman. All of us feel that way." Woods' story is a complicated one. Had he not been charged with a felony, he would have been on his way to Fresno State in August 2000, where head coach Pat Hill had a scholarship waiting for him. But, like at Oregon, Woods would n't be able to play for the Bulldogs with a felony on his record. Hill "was behind me just like coach Bellotti," Woods said. "From the get go, (Hill) told me, 'OK, you get all this stuff cleared up, you still have your scholarship here.' I was fine with it un til I went to my sentencing. I was up set, but I really wasn't too upset be cause there was nothing I could do about it. It was something that he had to do." So, Woods went to Fresno City, where he played for two seasons un der head coach Tony Caviglia. Accord ing to a story in The Fresno Bee in De cember 2001, Caviglia didn't know of Woods' situation until the teenager called in April 2001 and expressed in terest in playing for the program. However, that didn't matter. The junior college had no student code of conduct, so Woods was free to attend classes and play football. "Kids make mistakes," Caviglia said in a phone interview earlier this week. "I le's an example of someone who deserves a second chance." Then and now Woods said he tries to forget that fateful night, but knows he will never be able to flush it out of his mind. He tries to push it to the back of his head so he can concentrate on things like classes and football, and getting used to the way of life in Eugene, where he will spend at least one more year. Caviglia described him as a player who plays as hard as he can on the field and is responsible off of it. Oregon comerback Justin Phinisee said Woods has been just another teammate and that the incident that clouded Woods' life has not been dwelled upon. "You would think a wild kid com ing out to the city like this, everybody would see the trouble he gets in," Phinisee said, describing what the preconception of Woods was like. "But he's low-key. He hangs out and comes to our house on the weekends. He likes to have fun. He knows his limit. He's learned from his past, and 1 think he's a good guy." Woods is majoring in sociology. Like seemingly every collegiate foot ball player, he wants to play in the NFL, but knows only a lucky few get that chance. If he doesn't graduate to the NFL, Woods said he would like to become a social worker and be someone who can offer counseling to teenagers and help lead them away from the dan gers of life. "It's a good life lesson be cause 1 learned a lot from the stuff I've been through and the people f’tflFi’Q I've talked to," he said. "I would love to teach that to other people." Although he's always been reli gious, Woods said the events of that May night have made him focus more on the Bible and his belief in God. "My main lesson I've learned is to trust in God with all your heart and he'll do everything for you," Woods said. "He's up there, and he knows what's going on at all times. If you give everything to him, he'll make sure to straighten your path out." Neal, for one, is happy to have him as a member of the secondary. Neal has liked what he has seen from the junior and is looking forward to hav ing him for at least one more season. He echoes Caviglia's belief that Woods is deserving of that second chance. "His situation is still ambiguous, at best, in terms of what happened," Neal said. "I think they have to sepa rate tire fact of who did what and un derstand that he did not do the main crime that happened. "So anyhow, what do I know about right and wrong, any more than any one else? We all feel like human be ings. We all want to give someone a second chance. Sometimes maybe we give people third and fourth chances. I think Rodney has learned a great les son, and I think he'll be a college graduate and we'll all be proud of him." Contact the sports editor at hankhager@daiiyemerald.com. ^■OFF MEDIUM FREE DELIVERY Present coupon. Not valid with other offers. Good through 12-31-03. 1 Oflfl £ D ft HI |# | | ng n H mmm% V mm mm warn mm mm mm mm mm f ■ oil Si rKrtllEItLIN KSLVKJ 284-8484 or 484-2799 OREGON'S MOSTTRUSTED PIERCING NAME SINCE 1996 ML ——-— Navel Jewelry Sale! 10? 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