More poison pen stuff:
Richard will probably want to frame this article.
ar
rmorris@thestate.com
(803) 771-8432
A national radio talk show host recently addressed the issue of off-field misconduct among college athletes. He all but called South Carolina a bandit football program, lumping it in with Alabama and Tennessee among the Southeastern Conference schools that most lack discipline.
Unfortunately, this is the growing reputation of the USC program, which again is experiencing a troubling offseason. Academic casualties, possession of marijuana, fights in Five Points. The list of offenses leaves USC with as many as eight players suspended for the start of spring practice.
One wonders when the calamity will ever end. The problems are not unique to USC. Every major college football program in the country is dealing with what is a societal program.
Eric Hyman, USC’s athletics director, likes to relate a story first told by one of his associate athletics directors, Charles Waddell. Growing up in the Piedmont area of North Carolina, Waddell recalls seeing an occasional wino on a street corner.
“They all came up to him and said, ‘Charles, you go to college and you better yourself. You make sure you do that,’” Hyman recalls Waddell saying.
“Today, a young person goes up on a street corner and the person on the corner rubs his hands together and says, ‘Hey, I’ve got the stuff for you.’”
The way Hyman sees it, we live in a society where respect for authority is vanishing, accountability for ones actions is passe and the principles or right and wrong are lost.
That college football players find trouble is a reflection of society. Give USC, as well as other schools, credit for adopting classes and seminars that help steer athletes down a path toward sterling citizenship.
That’s all good and well. But until a couple of fundamental changes are made within the athletics department and more punitive discipline is doled out, we can expect the same kind of shenanigans from USC football players until eternity.
Let’s begin with the recruiting of athletes who have no business being in an institution of higher learning. USC has signed two football players who have been charged with criminal offenses. One is a defensive back who has five criminal charges against him, including three burglary counts related to a string of smash-and-grab incidents at an Atlanta-area rental center. The other is a defensive end from Georgia who has been arrested three times, most recently in August for taking money from teammates’ rooms.
All charges could eventually be dropped against both players. Nevertheless, a pattern of criminal activity should signal to USC coach Steve Spurrier that these are not the kinds of players who can best represent the university.
Spurrier makes the final call on these matters, as does the head coach in every other sport at USC. Since there are more than 500 athletes at USC, Hyman says it would be difficult for the athletics director to determine which athletes should or should not be admitted based on criminal activity.
“A coach in the recruiting process knows a lot more than the athletic director does, and a lot more of the circumstances of why they recruited the individuals,” Hyman says. “They know the consequences for it, so you have vested the authority for coaches to make good judgment calls, good judgment decisions.”
That should change when it comes to dealing with athletes with checkered backgrounds. Change also is needed in dealing with the APR, the NCAA’s measuring stick for academic progress. Coaches are learning to use the APR as a reason for not booting athletes from teams.
Retention rate is an important component of the APR. Athletes who do not graduate or do not remain at a school count against that school’s APR. If a school’s APR falls below a certain level, it could lose scholarships. Already, coaches have said they can’t afford to kick a player off their team for fearing of losing scholarships.
“I don’t think you can use that as an excuse, but it is a factor,” Hyman says of the APR. “Maybe you have to have more leniency than you have in the past because of the retention component.”
In football, a few scholarship losses would have no effect whatsoever. Football’s allotment of 85 scholarships is too fat to begin with.
Finally, it is time for schools such as USC to abandon the “innocent until proven guilty” line of jurisdiction when it concerns its athletes. Athletics departments are not democracies. An athlete receives a scholarship as a privilege, not a right.
If an athlete is involved in any incident, he should face immediate punishment. A second offense should mean a loss of scholarship. The overriding thinking for every athlete should be that he cannot afford to be anywhere near trouble.
When it comes to discipline issues in college athletics, I often am reminded of Dick Sheridan’s tenure at North Carolina State. When he arrived, the Wolfpack had a well-earned reputation as a football team loaded with thugs and misfits.
Sheridan immediately changed the rules, allowing that any football player remotely involved in any wrongdoing off the field would immediately lose his scholarship, no questions asked. Early on, his star receiver failed to leave an on-campus fight. Even though the receiver was not involved in the fight, he was dismissed from the team for one year.
Not surprisingly, the N.C. State football team quickly learned to behave. The program carried a sterling image by the time Sheridan departed after seven seasons.
