If he is smart, Chris Rainey will someday remember Tuesday as one of the best days of his life.
If he is foolish, Tuesday will be an obligatory moment in every news feature chronicling the downward spiral that leads to Rainey's eventual a) long-term incarceration or b) early death.
It's really that simple.
Unfortunately, there is little to suggest that Rainey, a running back-turned-wide receiver for the Florida Gators, is anything but foolish. We will get to that in a moment.
Late Monday night, according to a Gainesville Police Dept. report, Rainey arrived at his on-again, off-again girlfriend's home, calling and texting her. Allegedly, he said, "I am here and I will bust out the window," at which point she emerged from her home and asked him to leave.
Rainey complied, but then allegedly texted (police claim he confessed to this): "Time to die (expletive) u and ur???"
If this all does not sound a little O.J. Simpson to you, that may be because it was Lawrence Phillips who first came to mind.
Rainey's "girlfriend" -- and I'm going to take a wild and admittedly unsubstantiated stab here, but I wager that she is not the only card in his deck, which would make the matter of his jealousy ("u and ur???") hypocritical -- called the police, who then asked her to phone Rainey. Allegedly, when she placed the call and told Rainey that the police wanted to speak with him, he replied, "Wait and see what happens when they leave."
Not long after -- precisely at 3:27 a.m., according to police records -- Rainey was booked into jail. Later on Tuesday morning, after being charged with "aggravated stalking," a third-degree felony, he was released on his own recognizance.
As I write this, Florida has yet to officially address his status with the Gators other than a comment from offensive coordinator Steve Addazio, who told Mark Long of the Associated Press, "(Chris) is no longer with the team."
Last month, it was Rainey who, on the first day of training camp, suggested to reporters that the Gators had better team chemistry because "I guess we got rid of the prima donnas -- all the selfish cats." When Florida coach Urban Meyer was apprised of Rainey's remarks, he told the Miami Herald, "I can name some other things he said to the media that were absolutely inappropriate."
Meyer did not enumerate, but here's one example. When Rainey arrived in Gainesville out of Lakeland (Fla.) High School, he told a reporter at the school newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator, "Every time you see a fine girl (in Gainesville), you see another fine girl better than her. (Some people) like different color girls and stuff like that. I'm a white girl man."
It was as if the Gators had just signed Barney Stinson and Tracy Jordan. And while nothing Rainey said that day was necessarily malicious or even different from what many freshmen at Florida believe, his lack of discretion opened nearly as many eyes as his world-class speed.
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