“As a result of his comments yesterday, which were offensive and vulgar, Jameis Winston will undergo internal discipline and will be withheld from competition for the first half of the Clemson game,” Florida State’s interim president, Garnett S. Stokes, and Athletic Director Stan Wilcox said in a joint statement. The university declined to comment further.
At a news conference Wednesday, just after the suspension was issued, Winston said he wanted to apologize “to the university, to my coaches and to my teammates” and called his behavior “selfish.”
“I did something,” he said, “so I’ve got to accept my consequences.”
He added, “We’re going to think about moving forward and winning the game.”
It is the latest episode involving Winston, who was accused in late 2012 of raping a fellow student. Prosecutors declined to file charges in that case. The New York Times reported in April that the woman had promptly contacted the police and that the Tallahassee Police Department had conducted virtually no investigation. This month, the woman’s lawyer said Florida State had begun a disciplinary inquiry into the case.
In May, Winston admitted stealing $32 worth of crab legs from a supermarket.
Winston’s comments Tuesday, which were sexual in nature, played off a meme — a running gag, essentially — in which passers-by shout the phrase in videos ostensibly taken from live news broadcasts. The incident was first reported Tuesday by the website Deadspin, which collated Twitter messages of several eyewitnesses.
The comments come at a time when there is public outcry over some football players’ treatment of women, stemming primarily from the recently released video of the former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice punching his then-fiancée.