Stu wants to talk a little about Keith Millard. Who are we to say no:

Name: Keith Millard

Nickname: I think people were too afraid of him to give him a nickname.

Claim to Fame, Minnesota (on-field): Remember when the Vikings used to have a pass rush?  Then you remember Keith Millard.  Along with Chris Doleman, he terrified opposing QBs.  He was the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year in 1989, when he set the record for sacks by a defensive tackle with 18.  The record still stands.

Claim to Fame, Minnesota (off-field): Bear in mind, these things actually happened.

*Millard barricaded himself in a Bloomington hotel room during his rookie season and provided police officers with the immortal quote, “My arms are more powerful than your guns.”
*While the above quote is open to debate, there’s little doubt that Millard’s Corvette was more powerful than the concrete flower planter at a Mankato Hardee’s drive-thru. Per City Pages, he smacked right into it during training camp in 1991, fled the scene for the sanctuary of Gage Hall, and left the ‘vette where it was and the Home of the Thickburger in need of a new planter.
*Why did he skedaddle? It’s fair to speculate that drunk-driving charges in 1989 and 1990 had something to do with it.

Where He Is Now: He’s the defensive line coach for the Oakland Raiders. Of course.

Glorious Randomness: According to the article linked above, while attending Washington State, he punched his fraternity president over who got dibs on a slice of pizza. Of course. He spent 15 days in the hoosegow for the assault.

Pot-Stirring: Who doesn’t like a nice, light-hearted conversation about race and the media? Yeah. Anyway, growing up, I recall Millard and his spiritual predecessor, Tommy Kramer, practically being folk heroes as much for their off-field shenanigans as their gameday accomplishments. In recent years, though, we’ve witnessed much pearl-clutching over the antics of Koren Robinson, Randy Moss, Daunte Culpepper, Bryant McKinnie and Fred Smoot. For your consideration: Of the above five, only Koren Robinson can claim a rap sheet equivalent to Millard’s. His DWI, along with Moss’s escapades with traffic cops and the Love Boat incident, sparked no small amount of outrage and Maude Flanders-esque, “Think of the children!!!!” shrieking. I’ll just note the race of the gentlemen in question compared to that of Millard and Kramer and leave it at that; when Millard was stalking the 494 Strip, there was no KFAN, Deadspin, NFL Network or cell phone cameras, and the local newspaper and television coverage wasn’t near the saturation level we have now.  Millard could have held dogfights on the Love Boat while piloting it through the Hardee’s drive-thru and it would maybe, maybe, have had as many column inches as Sydney Rice’s contract negotiations. Race aside, it’s awful hard to have a “boys will be boys” moment these days.

I think these two above elements, more than anything else, account for the discrepancy. You can hash out if one is more responsible than the other, if I’m just a stupid liberal who should shut up, or the inherent hilarity of the words “skedaddle” and “hoosegow,” in the comments.

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