Rutgers Player Paralyzed From the Neck Down: 'It's a Nightmare for Any Parent'

Say a prayer for Eric LeGrand. This is just heartbreaking.

Rutgers coach Greg Schiano met with his team this morning to deliver the news: Junior defensive tackle Eric LeGrand suffered a spinal cord injury and has no movement below his neck.

LeGrand, who was injured in the Scarlet Knights' 23-20 victory over Army on Saturday, underwent emergency surgery after the game at Hackensack University Medical Center. He's in the intensive care unit and will remain at the hospital for the near future.

"No one knows,'' said Schiano when asked about LeGrand's prognosis moving forward.

"Certainly, there are experts. I've done a lot of research in the last 24 hours. As I told our team, we are going to believe that Eric LeGrand is going to walk onto that field again with us.

"That's what we believe. We'll see with what speed that happens. We've had a great outpouring from across the state and from alums and fans and we just ask for their continued prayers.''

Schiano, who rushed to the hospital immediately after the game, said he spoke with LeGrand before and after the surgery.

"Eric's spirits were as good as you could expect,'' he said. "He was cognizant of me being there and his mom and everybody. He's a fighter.

"He has a new set of challenges in front of him but there's no doubt in my mind Eric LeGrand is going to look those challenges in the eye like he has all the rest of them and overcome them.''

Schiano said he spent the entire night at the hospital along with LeGrand's mother, Karen, and LeGrand's family and friends. Several players also were there as was Rutgers athletic director Tim Pernetti and deputy athletic director Kevin MacConnell. LeGrand is one of the most popular players on the team.

"It's a nightmare for any parent,'' said Schiano. "(LeGrand) has a great family and they were all there last night. We spent the entire night together and there are going to be a lot of nights together. They're very supportive. That's the reason he's the young man that he is.''

There's video of the play at the link, but it's disturbing. It reminds me of the play on which Buffalo Bills tight end Kevin Everett was paralyzed back in 2007. Everett never played again but was able to recover and walk again.

May God bless this young man in the fight of his life.

'The Ivory Tower is Prostituting Itself for Money'

Well, now we know what the price was to allow a genocidal madman a forum at the (ahem) prestigious Ivy League university. Seems like these people would sell anything for a buck.

Anti-Israel, pro-Iran university professors are being funded by a shadowy multimillion-dollar Islamic charity based in Manhattan that the feds charge is an illegal front for the repressive Iranian regime.

The deep-pocketed Alavi Foundation has aggressively given away hundreds of thousands of dollars to Columbia University and Rutgers University for Middle Eastern and Persian studies programs that employ professors sympathetic to the Iranian dictatorship.

"We found evidence that the government of Iran really controlled everything about the foundation," said Adam Kaufmann, investigations chief at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.

Federal law-enforcement authorities are in the midst of seizing up to $650 million in assets from the Alavi Foundation, which they charge funnels money to Iran-supported Islamic schools in the United States and to a syndicate of Iranian spies based in Europe.

In one of the biggest handouts, the controversial charity donated $100,000 to Columbia University after the Ivy League school agreed to host Iranian leader and Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to the foundation's 2007 tax filings obtained by The Post.

Columbia wasn't the only school to whore itself out for a payday. The People's Republic of Piscataway also got in on the act in a big way.

Rutgers professor Hooshang Amirahmadi, former head of the school's Center for Middle Eastern Studies and president of the American-Iranian Council, a nonprofit advocacy group, unabashedly has touted Hezbollah and Hamas as legitimate organizations and not terrorists.

Between 2005 and 2007, the Alavi Foundation donated $351,600 to the Rutgers Persian language program, a spokesman for the school acknowledged. The university would not comment further.

Alavi's Web site says its mission is the "promotion of Islamic culture and Persian language."

"This is all about Iran laundering their policies through academe," said Michael Rubin, an Iran expert at the American Enterprise Institute think tank. "And the ivory tower is prostituting itself for money."

Class President With Sticky Fingers

Quite the busy young lady.

Rutgers police said yesterday it reopened a year's worth of unsolved dorm-room thefts after the 2007 class president - who is also the university beauty-pageant queen - and her boyfriend were charged with a string of campus burglaries.

The alleged class-klepto Christa Olandria - president of Rutgers' Livingston College Class of 2007 and reigning Ms. R.U. pageant winner - stood as a lookout while her boyfriend gained access to dorm rooms with a universal key she provided, police said.

"We are re-evaluating and going back and checking past burglaries and other incidents," said Rutgers University security officer Sean Skala. "We have seven prior incidents since September 2006."

Both Olandria, who worked as a dormitory resident assistant and had a universal key, and boyfriend George Calhoun of Jamaica, Queens, face burglary, theft and criminal-attempt charges. Olandria and Calhoun, both 23, are free on $2,500 bail.

Their collegiate capers came to an end Monday, when Calhoun was allegedly caught red-handed. A student returned to his locked room and found Calhoun inside stuffing the student's laptop computer, digital camera and wallet into a duffel bag, police said.

Neither student will be participating in the May 17 graduation at the Piscataway campus, according to university police.

"I'm not going to discuss this," said a woman who answered the phone at Olandria's family home in Rahway, N.J.

After the traumatic, earthshaking events surrounding Don Imus, one wonders whether the university can soldier on.

Pantsuit and the Racist

If you had any doubt the Democrats are beholden to the racist Al Sharpton, this should put those doubts to rest. Looks like love to me.

Appearing with the Rev. Al Sharpton, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton made an impassioned plea yesterday to become the first woman president as she urged women to wage a campaign against media outlets that denigrate them.

"I am proud to be a woman running for president. And I hope that by my winning, other young girls and women can think about how they keep going, what barriers they break through," Clinton said to rousing applause during a women's luncheon at the Sheraton New York Hotel sponsored by Sharpton's National Action Network.

Clinton praised Rutgers University basketball coach Vivian Stringer and players for challenging radio shock jock Don Imus, who was fired after calling them "nappy-headed ho's."

It's so refreshing to get away from the minor stories like the Virginia Tech massacre and get back to the real issues, like Don Imus. Just one problem with Mrs. Clinton jumping on the Imus story after two weeks. The players have had enough.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton finally dropped by Rutgers to meet with the school's women's basketball coach -- but the players themselves skipped the half-hour meeting, citing their studies and Imus fatigue.

Good for them. It appears they've had enough exploitation.

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