ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 14, 1996 TAG: 9603140021
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SAM DONNELLON KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE NEWSPAPERS
SOME SAY IT'S TIME for the NCAA to begin punishing student-athletes who break society's rules as harshly as those who break the association's rules.
The head of the NCAA says misconduct by athletes is out of his hands.
The coach of the top Division I football team in the land two years running says it's a societal problem.
NCAA executive director Cedric Dempsey and Nebraska football coach Tom Osborne say there's no quick way to stop the criminal activity that pervades big-time sports, no way of converting a troubled running back into a model citizen in the speed of a 100-yard dash.
According to a Los Angeles Times study of high school, college and pro sports, more than 345 athletes were arrested in the United States last year, many for violent crimes such as rape, assault and robbery. At least 209 of those arrests involved college athletes. Many avoided jail terms through plea bargains. Many avoided ineligibility or expulsion through loophole-laden student-conduct codes.
In six weeks this past fall, seven athletes attending two of Idaho's four state-run universities were arrested on charges that included rape and assault on a policeman.
Also in the past fall:
* Nebraska's star running back, Lawrence Phillips, scaled a wall and broke into an apartment to fetch a former girlfriend and drag her down three flights of stairs, according to police reports.
* The Minnesota Vikings' starting quarterback, Warren Moon, was arraigned on assault charges for allegedly beating his wife.
* The O.J. Simpson trial came to a controversial close with Simpson's acquittal on charges he murdered his ex-wife and an acquaintance.
The state board of education in Idaho watched and listened in amazed horror as each case unfolded. The people in charge of Idaho's four state-run universities - Boise State, Idaho, Idaho State and Lewis-Clark State - became ``extremely frustrated,'' says Idaho Deputy Attorney General Michael Larsen, and they did something about it.
Within days of the last arrest involving one of its players, the board created an athletic code of conduct. Any athlete convicted of a felony would lose the opportunity to compete for any of the state-run schools. Any juvenile convicted of a felony would not be recruited by its coaches. Each athlete would sign a disclosure form.
It took all of two pages. ``Simple stuff, really,'' says Larsen, who supervised its draft.
Simple? Try telling that to Dempsey. The NCAA has no national guidelines on behavior, he says, because it cannot offer due process nor can it police criminal activity.
Of course, neither can Idaho's board of education.
What it can do, Larsen says, is deny the ``privilege'' of playing intercollegiate sports in Idaho to athletes who have been convicted.
``Ours is a statement that we didn't want isolated incidents to tarnish the image of all of our athletes,'' he says. ``The feeling here was to give athletes a sense of pride coming to Idaho. To know there was a certain standard here, a certain standard of conduct that was required. And if you fell below that, you will not be participating in intercollegiate athletics in this state.''
Couldn't the NCAA do that for the nation?
``At this point,'' Dempsey says, ``there is not an interest among our membership to adopt a code of conduct or address such issues.''
Whose fault is it anyway?
At this point, there is barely an admission of guilt among the NCAA membership. Dempsey points out there are about 300,000 athletes participating in intercollegiate sports. The arrest of 209 of them, he says, hardly is epidemic.
``The issue is not simply intercollegiate athletics,'' he says. ``Athletics in general are a microcosm of society.''
Dempsey is not alone in that belief. John Chaney, Temple's basketball coach, used the same three words, ``microcosm of society,'' when asked about athlete misconduct. Jim Griesen, vice chancellor for student affairs at Nebraska, used the same phrase in discussing the task force put together in the fall amid the highly publicized case of Phillips.
The task force, made up of representatives from the Nebraska administration, faculty and athletic department, was created to study the behavior of student-athletes.
``Everyone likes to talk about family values and restoring civility to the way it was,'' Chaney says. ``But that's going to be hard. The horse is out of the barn. And you can't find a noose that fits around its neck.''
Osborne says: ``It seems like we're still holding to a standard that was prevalent in the '50s of what we expect of our athletic teams. Maybe that is what it should be. I just know what reality is.''
Reality at Nebraska is one football player allegedly dragged his ex-girlfriend down the stairs, another (wingback Riley Washington) was arrested for second-degree murder and another (cornerback Tyrone Williams) was charged with a convenience-store heist.
Reality at Nebraska also is the coach and supportive administrators arguing their school is not much different from any other major college.
Maybe they are right. While some sociologists argue big-time athletes simply are observed more than other people, at least one recent study suggests there is a higher percentage of violent crime among athletes than the student body as a whole.
In a 1994 survey of 30 college campuses, researchers determined male student-athletes made up 3.3 percent of the total student population, but were responsible for 19 percent of all reported assaults on women. In the Los Angeles Times study, of the 252 police reports filed last year involving athletes, 77 were assaults on women.
Todd Crossett, a sports management professor at Massachusetts and co-author of the 1994 survey, cites factors such as steroid use and binge drinking. Some sociologists believe the privileged status offered to male athletes in revenue-producing sports such as football and basketball is a factor, as well.
``Elite athletes learn entitlement,'' says Jackson Katz, who runs a violence-prevention program at Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society. ``They believe they are entitled to have women serve their needs. It's part of being a man. It's the cultural construction of masculinity.''
Perhaps the most controversial suggestion is that such crimes emanate from the mentality taught through sports. Mariah Burton Nelson argues the male sports environment devalues women in her book, ``The Stronger Women Get, The More Men Like Football: Sexism and the American Culture of Sports.''
``It is not the sports themselves, but the culture of the sports in which male athletes and coaches talk about women with contempt,'' Nelson says. ``It begins with the Little League coach saying, `You throw like a girl.' This teaches boys to feel superior.
``So masculinity is defined as aggression and dominance. That, to me, is the crux of the problem: In order to be a man, you have to be on top, to control, to dominate. We know this is not a `male thing' - there are just as many men who don't rape or beat women. The culture of sports is a breeding ground. And we [society] enable them. They joke about it and nothing happens to them.''
Don McPherson, a former Philadelphia Eagles backup quarterback, works with Athletes in Service to America, a national program stressing violence prevention and academic success for current and former college athletes. He disputes Nelson's contention athletes are more prone to criminal behavior, instead citing family and economic factors.
``I was on `Donahue' with her last year and she made the same assertions,'' he says. ``And then she [excluded fraternities]. I said, `You've got to be kidding me.'
``That's like saying, with the exception of white people, there are more black people than any other in the United States. It's ridiculous.''
McPherson also fears any national code of conduct would be inherently racist, and deny a second chance for athletes who got in trouble early in life.
Osborne cited rehabilitation for his reluctance to send Phillips packing. Phillips lived in a group home for troubled youths in junior and senior high school.
``Our jails are full, and yet we're not putting much dent in crime,'' Osborne told the Los Angeles Times in December. ``My orientation is, if we can rehabilitate somebody, let's do it. Let's not throw them on the human scrap heap until they've really proven they are incorrigible.''
Critics say the Nebraska athletic program is not a rehabilitation center. Cynics might say Osborne is interested in rehabilitation only when it produces national championships.
Not playing by the rules
A Heisman Trophy candidate, Phillips was suspended from the Nebraska football team in September after being charged with third-degree assault of Nebraska basketball player Katie McEwen. He pleaded no contest.
Osborne was cheered for immediately kicking Phillips off the team, and jeered, days later, when he opened the door for Phillips's return. Osborne's reputation for integrity was further eroded when he reinstated Phillips six weeks later.
The debate about the autonomy of coaches such as Osborne and athletic departments seems to be at the core of any discussion of a national code of conduct.
``We set academic standards for student-athletes to achieve in order to get scholarships,'' says Angela Beck, the Nebraska women's basketball coach and a member of the school's task force. ``To me, behavior is the first thing that you look at. Then academics.
``I think we have to set standards for the high school people to follow. We should have behavior records for each student-athlete who comes into Nebraska. If they have a previous conviction, they have to have a year of counseling, off the team, in stress management. Then we have a hold. We don't really have a hold of these kids when they come in.''
Quietly, the NCAA has agreed. It has outlawed athlete-only dorms, beginning next school year. It has begun a ``life-skills'' program at the college level to battle behavioral deficiencies among its athletes. So far, 171 universities have taken part.
``I don't want to lead you to think we're not sensitive,'' Dempsey says.
It might not hurt the NCAA to set up a life-skills program for coaches and athletic administrators, too, to avoid things like the recent embarrassments.
LENGTH: Long : 183 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Lawrence Phillips, who worked out for NFL scoutsby CNBTuesday in Lincoln, Neb., was at the center of a controversy when he
was reinstated to the Nebraska football team after pleading no
contest to beating his former girlfriend.