Realizing we’ve become a nation of double standards, I really
shouldn’t have been surprised at the results of the brawl between
Florida Miami and Florida International last week. You take
run-of-the-mill felons, put them on the gridiron, and viola! You
have more pardons than Ford and Clinton combined.
There are two classes of people in our judicial system that get
free rides: Wealthy, white-collar criminals and athletes.
Realizing we’ve become a nation of double standards, I really shouldn’t have been surprised at the results of the brawl between Florida Miami and Florida International last week. You take run-of-the-mill felons, put them on the gridiron, and viola! You have more pardons than Ford and Clinton combined.
There are two classes of people in our judicial system that get free rides: Wealthy, white-collar criminals and athletes.
I watched a 300-pound lineman rear back with helmet in hand and wallop an opposing player on his head. Now imagine me in a bar, as hard as that might be, and I pick up a bottle of Marker’s Mark … no wait, let’s make it Jim Beam (No sense in wasting good bourbon on an analogy), and wallop the guy next to me on his head.
Now envision another guy coming along and while my victim is lying on the floor trying to staunch his head wound and slamming his foot down on what was previously was the undamaged side of his head.
Who out there thinks we would not be handcuffed, dragged to jail and be allowed to cool our heels for at least one night? Now imagine my trail. I committed this assault and battery in front of dozens of witnesses, let alone hundreds of thousands. Somehow I just don’t see the jury foreman standing up and saying, “You’re honor, we find the defendants not guilty, ’cause, you know, boys will be boys.”
You’re probably thinking I’m blaming these testosterone-charged thugs. No, I’m not. They’re trained to inflict the worst possible damage on their opponents – you know, ’cause they disrespected you by attending another university.
I blame, in this order, Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner John Swofford, head coaches Don Strock (Florida International) and Larry Coker (Florida Miami), and the respective university presidents.
Upon announcing that the 31 players involved in the melee – felons in any jurisdiction outside a football stadium – would suffer a one-game suspension, ACC comish Swofford declared:
“These suspensions send a clear and definitive message that this type of behavior will not be tolerated.”
Now I may be bred of a southern family, but I’m not inbred of a southern family. At least as far as I know. The only “clear and definitive message” one-game suspensions serve is the one that says, “You hit another player in the head with your helmet and stomp on another player’s head with your cleats and you will skate from the same prosecution as those not wearing jock straps.”
That might be a little deep for players whose toughest classes are likely remedial wood shop and Introduction to Football Jersey Embroidery. Maybe something simpler: “You do the crime, you spend one Saturday on the sideline.”
Swofford should be fired. Anything short of not imposing an immediate full-season suspension and a gazillion hours of community service shoveling dog sh-t off the front lawns of their respective universities is a travesty to college football. If you want to be a felon and play football, there’s always the NFL.
But college is supposed to be about molding student athletes, teaching them responsibility for their actions – about doing the right thing.
Second, if Strock and Coker did not boot every thug involved in the brawl off their teams for the season, then they should be fired. Coaches in schools, be it high school or college, must hold their student athletes to a higher standard, not a lesser one. I almost said “… a higher standard than the NFL, but I supposed there would first need to be some sort of standard at all in the NFL.
My concern is there is no impetus for change. Who’s going to complain? Fans? Hardly. They pay to see the star athletes play. Alumni? You must be kidding. To reverse this ugly trend, and to force some personal responsibility among players, the conference chiefs need to grow some cojones. They have to stare down intimidating alumni and pleading coaches who would gladly sacrifice their last shred of dignity if they can just please please please keep that sophomore phenom on the team.
And if coaches willing to bench half their team for the season on principle aren’t being hired by the universities, it’s time to take a closer look at who appointed the trustees and regents. That would mean you and I would first need to insulted by these kids’ behavior. If we’re not, far worse things than abhorrent behavior on a football field awaits us.
Dennis Taylor is The Pinnacle city editor. He can be reached at [email protected].
