ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 24, 1996 TAG: 9604240027
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on April 26, 1996. Virginia Tech football
player Tony Morrison was found guilty in February of possessing his
older brother's driver's license, a traffic violation, and not of public
intoxication as was mistakenly suggested in an editorial Wednesday.
DOES THE University of Nebraska value its status as a football powerhouse more than any reputation it might seek as an institution of learning, of fairness or of moral integrity? In the past year, this question or something like it has been widely and often asked.
Might the same question be asked of Virginia Tech?
It could be, if Tech isn't careful. Comparisons with Nebraska are unfortunate, but inevitable.
Kate McEwen, a former girlfriend of the top player for the No. 1-ranked Nebraska football team, certainly has been wondering about her university's priorities.
Beating up someone as badly as Lawrence Phillips beat up McEwen would get most folks thrown out of school and into the slammer. For Phillips, it was probation, a class in anger control and domestic-violence prevention, and a six-game suspension from the football team. He returned to the gridiron last fall without missing a beat, and last weekend was drafted by the St. Louis Rams of the professional National Football League.
McEwen, a basketball player, has learned what it does take to get an athletic scholarship revoked at Nebraska. Her performance on the basketball court this winter went downhill; this spring, the university took away her athletic scholarship. The publicity has sullied the university's reputation.
But what about closer to home? How much does Tech value its more recent status as a football powerhouse, including its Sugar Bowl victory that capped the '95 season?
A former Tech student has brought a much-publicized lawsuit accusing two football players of raping her in a dorm room in September 1994. The allegation is serious, but the facts are murky. A Montgomery County grand jury this spring declined to indict either Tony Morrison or James Crawford.
But even leaving this issue aside, consider just the following:
* Jim Druckenmiller, the Sugar Bowl team's starting quarterback, is free on $5,000 bond, pending a hearing next month on a police charge of malicious wounding by mob in connection with a March 21 fight outside a Blacksburg bar.
* George DelRicco, the Sugar Bowl team's all-conference linebacker, faces a charge of assault and battery in connection with the same fight.
* Morrison in February was found guilty of public intoxication, and fined $500 (to be reduced to $100 upon completion of an eight-week alcohol-education class), in connection with a December incident at a downtown Blacksburg bar. Petty larceny and property-destruction charges were dismissed after Morrison settled with the establishment for restitution.
* Crawford, also in February, received a suspended 10-day jail sentence for disorderly conduct, stemming from an incident when he tried to pick up his automobile after it had been towed by campus police for unpaid parking tickets.
All but DelRicco, who has completed his football eligibility, are still on the team and played Saturday in Tech's spring intrasquad game.
Tech coach Frank Beamer, who was invited to speak Monday with the school's Board of Visitors, said of his players: "They do make mistakes. How large a mistake sometimes gets out of focus when it gets into the media." So, in other words, the apparent trend has been blown out of proportion?
More likely, what gets blown out of proportion are events like the Sugar Bowl. Muffed handoffs, missed tackles, dropped passes - those are mistakes. Incidents like the above suggest more fundamental problems. Universities, whether in Nebraska or Virginia, need to keep their values straight.
LENGTH: Medium: 69 linesby CNB