What bothered me was that it sounded like he didn't even try to stop LP. I know LP is/was a tough s.o.b. and would have probably kicked Scott's arse but, I think Scott should have tried to fight him off and not let LP be dragging her down the stairs. Now, maybe he did try to stop LP but that never came out.
There are only two people still alive who were there in that apartment on that night, and neither is talking about it, and neither likely ever will. I have taught a lot of history classes over the year, and one of the things that I'm always trying to get my students to understand is that people didn't know then what we know now, and it's not reasonable to act as though they should have known. That's how I see this situation. It is easy, now, ex post facto to look back and see that Lawrence Phillips wasn't safe around women when he was angry, but was there any public awareness of that at the time? I wasn't aware of any incidents before that, and I still haven't heard of any. Since Frost and Phillips weren't likely to have spent much time together outside of what was necessary in practices (and even that would have been very minimal as Frost was on the scout team that year), how would he have known?
What Frost
would have known at the time was that Phillips had a nasty temper and had been disciplined for fighting his own teammates in practice. Based on the interviews from teammates in the Lawrence Phillips documentary, it was clear that THEY thought that Phillips was coming after Frost that night, and they think that Phillips likely would have tried to kill him, which we now know wasn't far-fetched. Here's why I give Frost the benefit of the doubt: What in his past could have possibly prepared him to react in that moment to assume that Lawrence was going to hurt her like he did? For those of us who have been around people with violence issues, it's easy to think that others should recognize the signs of a victim or an abuser, but those who have not been around it are often naive about it. Unless there are things hidden that haven't been mentioned, didn't Frost have about as idyllic of a childhood is would have been possible at the time? It's doubtful that even his two years at Stanford included much time with people with the potential for violence that Phillips had. If you lived in a quiet small town your whole life, and then you're suddenly in a situation where a violent teammate is yelling at you and threatening you, and then scales the outside of an apartment building to come after you, isn't it asking a lot of that person to take stock of that situation and recognize that the girl was as much at risk, or more, than he was? I grew up in a similar sort of rural community to Frost, and I'm only a few years older, and I hate to admit that I probably would have reacted very similarly. I saw at least a couple fights per year when I was in high school between people I knew over some girl, but I never saw any guy that I knew ever hit a girl or hurt her physically. I don't think that it's a stretch to say that that might not have entered his mind at the time. Isn't it even possible that the girl told him to get away until he cooled down? Again, nobody is talking about it, and they probably never will, but I'm not aware of any evidence that she was ever afraid of Phillips prior to that night. (Fwiw, I'm purposefully not saying her name because she deserves a life apart from that night following her forever.)
If you're looking for nits to pick in order to criticize him, I've wondered how he responded
after Phillips dragged her out of the apartment. If Phillips grabbed her by the hair and dragged her down the stairs as has been asserted, how did he respond when he heard that she was in trouble? What happened at the bottom of the stairs that led to the scuffle where she got bashed against the mailboxes? Why did Phillips run away at that point? We don't know.
Here's what I do know: His experience that night has reshaped his life. Frost spent time with Ron Brown after that incident, and it was the start of a process that led to his life of faith. When I hear Frost's comments about how he doesn't want recruits who don't respect women, I personally hear echos of that night in his words. I don't think that he ever wants a player on his team like Phillips, and I'm pretty sure that he never wants to put one of his players or any Nebraska co-eds in the situation that he was in that night. He doesn't need to explicitly say that to see that he means it.
How did it affect him later? Did you ever see the aftermath of the Legarrette Blount punching incident at Boise State? Ever notice Frost at the end of that ugly episode? I'll put a link to the clip below. Be sure to look for the blonde haired Oregon coach around the 30-second mark who is putting himself between an irate and out-of-control Blount and some obnoxious Boise State fans who were trying to get him to lose his mind and start something more. Coincidence? Even if Frost acted less than chivalrous that night in 1995 when a crazed psycho crawled up the side of his building and broke into his apartment through the balcony door, Frost was 20 years old at the time. Is there anybody reading this who can seriously cast the first stone at him? I can't.
I still think it was kind of a shot at Shatel though.
We'll probably be able to figure that out, eventually. If they're on good terms, it wasn't; if they're not, it probably was. I don't see Shatel being able to stay quiet about it, either way.
Here's the video of the Blount punching incident and its aftermath. Look for Frost at about the 30-second mark.