What is the criminal history of football player Daniel Hood?
That record is not a pretty one. Hood was convicted of a particularly brutal sexual assault on a female relative at age 13, put into state custody (a second assailant, 17 at the time, was tried as an adult and remains in prison) and spent time in rehab and a Knoxville group home. This is one of those stories, though, where those institutions actually work: He got into Catholic (not without jumping through hoops — the school’s principal says they deliberated for two weeks), joined the football team, and has been by all accounts a model student and citizen since. Most teams interested in him backed off when they delved into his past, but Lane Kiffin offered him a scholarship; Hood accepted. He’s not a borderline case admitted because he can run fast or throw hard; he’s an honor student with a 3.8 GPA and everyone from his teachers to Catholic’s dean of students — “”We’ll put our school’s reputation on our recommendation for Daniel Hood” — to the victim herself has vouched for him. You
