Hofstra teams are called "the Pride." Today, eh, not so much. Four members of the basketball team—Shaquille Stokes, Kentrell Washington, Jimmy Hall, and Dallas Anglin—have been charged with running an electronics theft ring on campus.
Here's Newsday:
Four Hofstra University basketball players took advantage of their campus prestige to gain access to dorm rooms and steal more than $10,000 in high-end electronics—and ultimately a victimized student helped bring down their theft ring, police said.
The hoops stars sold the stolen goods to pawnshops, fellow students and through Craigslist, then used the proceeds to buy clothing and off-campus meals, said Det. Lt. Ray Cote, commanding officer of the Nassau police department's Third Squad.
"They were using this money that they gained to lead a more lavish lifestyle," Cote said. "They're prominent figures on campus, being athletes. And because of their social status they would have access to dorm rooms and they would get into areas, visiting one person perhaps and while in that area access a room that was unoccupied and take items."
If you think that sounds like a euphemism, you're right. Writes the New York Post:
Hall, 18, told cops that Stokes boosted a laptop from a dorm suite while Hall was in a room in that suite asking a girl he knew whether she would "be down to have some fun with me and my teammates" by having group sex with them, court records show. When the girl, who refused Hall's offer, later noticed the laptop was gone and asked him to check with his teammates whether any of them took it, Hall denied they had the computer, records allege.
But this could only last so long: A student who had her iPad stolen used the "Find My iPad" app and saw, according to police, that it had been reregistered to Shaquille Stokes. And so campus authorities and police soon came after the basketball players.
We'd say this is another point of evidence as to why college athletes ought to be paid, but given Hofstra's modest setup, proceeds from stolen laptop sales would likely dwarf their theoretical salaries. Hofstra is not UConn, and these four are not A.J. Price and Marcus Williams. Price and Williams, both of whom were picked in the NBA draft, were not only better basketball players but better electronics thieves than the Hofstra four—Williams and Price made off with two laptops per person; the Hofstra four, according to police, averaged only one laptop each. Remember when the Big East was good?