Texas A&M receiver Kirk Merritt has pleaded not guilty to two charges of indecent exposure from alleged incidents last October. And his attorney's defense is pathetic.
Merritt is a former four-star recruit from Louisiana who played one season at Oregon (2015) before transferring to Texas A&M last summer. During his redshirt year in College Station, he was accused of exposing himself in front of two tutors. The pair said in court documents that Merritt touched himself and they felt "offended or alarmed by the act of exposure," according to Houston Brent Zwerneman of the Houston Chronicle.
The reason for exposure? Jock itch, says Merritt's attorney Ricky Davis.
"While Kirk is very embarrassed about this situation, and has apologized to the two tutors that he offended, he did not intend to gratify anyone by exposing himself," Davis told the Houston Chronicle. "The fact is that Kirk had a bad case of jock itch."
Texas A&M football has two athletic trainers, one assistant athletic director for sport science and one assistant sports scientist. The athletics department has six physicians, one associate athletic director for athletic training, one director of sports medicine, one rehab specialist and one director of health and wellness.
Were all 14 of those individuals unavailable at the time Merritt had a "bad case of jock itch"? Were all 17 Texas A&M football coaches and assistants also booked up? What about the associate athletic director for football, director of football operations, director of player personnel and director of player development? All four of them were busy?
In five minutes without ever stepping foot on the Texas A&M campus, inside an athletics building or even making a phone call, we've identified 35 people who could've either helped him with his "bad case of jock itch" or directed him to the correct person.
Instead, Kirk Merritt opted for two tutors.
Granted, we weren't there, so we don't know. Maybe he didn't mean to.
