The New York Jets, who were already drowned in criticism about drafting a couple of players with violent backgrounds, added a third draftee with a scandalous past.
According to the New York Post, the team's 7th-round pick and Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez' longtime friend, Scotty McKnight, was suspended for the final eight games of his senior high school football season because he penned threatening and vicious words directed at his High School English teacher.
In a 2005 school assignment McKnight handed in to his teacher, the then-17 year-old wrote " I am planning coming in your room late one night while you are still working," he wrote. "I will smother you in gasoline and light your head on fire..."
In another entry, according to court records, McKnight sounded like Freddy Krueger by indicating he would glue the teacher naked to a wall, chop off her feet and kill her family while she watched.
The foot reference must have bothered Jets head coach Rex Ryan just a little.
McKnight, who later played college ball and broke receiving records at Colorado, said he and his high school teammate Sam Smith wrote the gruesome journal as a challenge to see who could write the most bizarre scenarios.
Both students thought the Tesoro (Calif.) English teacher was supposed to keep the journal private and not becoming public. The teacher, Alyssa Di Somma, took the journal to school officials after feeling threatened by the images it presented.
McKnight and Smith apologized to Di Somma and they were not criminally charged.
"Me and my buddy wrote some crazy stuff, Tarantino-like movie type stuff and we were trying to one-up each other, figuring no one was ever going to read it. It was for lack of judgment for sure, but we were 17 years-old and not thinking."
Not thinking is putting it mildly. The one person who would read it was the one you graphically threatened with bodily harm. Does Columbine ring a bell?
"It was an error in judgment," McKnight said. " I was 17 years-old and had an assignment to write whatever you want, be creative and no one was ever going to read it."
The "prank" almost cost the honor student and sports star McKnight his football career. Besides being suspended for the last eight football games of his senior year, McKnight was rebuffed by Boise State, to whom he had committed, and ended up as a walk-on at Colorado.
McKnight doesn't deny writing the vile journal and said the entire event was " a learning experience that ultimately get me to where I am today. You really see how one small error in judgment can affect your whole life."
The new Jet claims he was forthright about the incident with every team, including the Jets, who showed interest in drafting him.
"People know that is not me," said McKnight. "I was 17 years-old and had never been in trouble. I come from a family of police officers."
Sanchez will now be re-united with Sanchez, his old friend from their football days at Santa Margarita High School in Southern-California. Sanchez even threw to McKnight at Pro-Day and vouched for his abilities on the field last week.
"He's the best guy who didn't go to the combine," Sanchez said. "He didn't drop a ball at (Pro-Day). He'd be a steal for someone."
Is that a little tremble of fear in Sanchez's voice when discussing his new receiver/future slasher-film screenwriter. McKnight could give the football terms slash, cut and deep threat new meanings in the Jets huddle.
