Please Refrain from Stabbing Your Teammates!

Have you ever wondered what the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding would have looked like if it was played out on a college football team? Maybe you haven’t but thanks to the Northern Colorado Bears we know anyway.


Bears backup punter Mitch Cozad was arrested on suspicion of stabbing the team’s starting punter Rafael Mendoza in his kicking leg. Apparently the image of punters being “non-contact” athletes is changing.

"I guess the only identified motive at this point in time is the competition for that position," Evans police Lt. Gary Kessler said Wednesday.

Kessler said Mendoza was attacked (Kerrigan style) from behind and stabbed in his right thigh after parking his car outside his Evans apartment at about 9:30 p.m. Monday.

Cozad showed Harding like intelligence, or lack of, by stopping in front of a liquor store to remove tape that was covering his license plate. The store clerk gave police the license number and the car was traced to Cozad, according to Kessler.

However, unlike Harding who was allowed to participate in the Olympics Cozad was suspended from the team, evicted from his residence and expelled from school on Tuesday.