ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, October 11, 1996 TAG: 9610110026
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: JACK BOGACZYK
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
Frank Beamer has more than talked to his Virginia Tech football team about disorderly conduct. Obviously, with some of his players, the message has gone in one helmet ear hole and out the other.
The Hokies' head coach has brought in an FBI agent and a police chief to present programs on drugs and required attendance at a play where the topic was sexual harassment. Some players have been in counseling for various issues, including seven, Beamer said, on alcohol education.
Beamer has tried to curb his team's transgressions with threats that the next one to get into trouble will be history. That's why receiver Walter Ford was booted after he was caught - allegedly, but red-handed - and charged with shoplifting from the Tech bookstore.
Of course, no one knew Ford had been kicked off the team except his teammates - the overwhelming majority of whom are solid, up-front people - until The Roanoke Times was tipped off by off-campus sources, and Beamer's staff was asked about it and fessed up. Two backup players, Nat Williams and Jason Berish, had been suspended for the Rutgers game three weeks ago, and both were convicted of traffic offenses, including a DUI for Williams.
Beamer made neither of those one-game suspensions public. When quizzed about the pair Wednesday, one of Beamer's aides actually wondered why the two should be named in the newspaper, because the incidents were three weeks old. The next day, a Tech assistant coach asked a reporter whether it was the police releasing the information on the arrests.
Beamer's program is worried about leaks, when it has a flood of problems with the law.
It's pretty apparent that Beamer's program doesn't get the message. Tech athletic director Dave Braine said Beamer is "very upset, more distraught than I've seen him'' in the wake of Ford's arrest. The alumnus coach also took a strong step in canning Ford. He was banished before going to court.
``What I do is discipline people for what I know has taken place,'' Beamer said.
However, Beamer's insistence on keeping these transgressions and suspensions as intra-team matters hasn't shortened the rap sheet. It's obvious the Hokies' program tried - or at least hoped - to keep quiet the Berish and Williams convictions. And when would Beamer have told the world that Ford was gone? After Saturday's homecoming game? When someone asked Ford's whereabouts?
Although Ford's alleged larceny occurred Oct.3, Beamer didn't mention he had kicked the receiver off the team at his game-week news conference six days later. ``Frank is very closed-mouthed about these things,'' Braine said, ``but I can tell you he's not closed-mouthed with the team.''
Braine is saying it's Beamer's football team. It is, but it isn't. It's Virginia Tech's football team, and Tech is a public university with thousands of students and alumni. Beamer is reluctant to embarrass a few of his players, even when convicted, but they can humiliate their school and fellow teammates, perhaps without being acknowledged. Hmmmmmm.
``I don't think we have to announce these things to the media. We have a family here, and we handle these things within our family,'' Beamer said. ``Our family happens to be larger than most. We have a few who have not taken life in a positive direction, and we separate them from the family. If we have a good family, and we do, and we continue to discipline them, which we are, we'll come out of this thing.''
There's little evidence of that to date, however. Late Thursday morning, Braine was called to an afternoon meeting at Tech President Paul Torgersen's office. Is there any question about the subject matter? Braine actually interrupted a reporter in disagreement when asked about the ``recurring problems'' with the law in the football program.
Maybe he should get his head out of the Sugar Bowl. Do Braine and Torgersen know of these player dismissals when they occur? If so, do they condone such public secrecy?
``The thing I've said and nobody seems to pick up on is that everybody blames the coaches when these things happen,'' said Braine, a former coach. ``The blame belongs back on the players. Somebody raised them for 18 or 20 years before they got here. Their values and morals were already set when they came here.
``The coaches can't live every minute of every day with them. They should be given credit when they do what's right and they should be punished when they do what's wrong. Don't blame the coaches.''
Maybe if Beamer and his staff weren't so intent on trying to find out from where the bad news is leaking, they would realize that dealing with it in a more up-front fashion might help. Beamer's policy begs the question what else the Hokies might be covering up.
Also, consider that Tech still must deal with the impending arrests that could come out of a Montgomery Country grand jury on the alleged Aug.31 beating of track star Hilliard Sumner. He has said publicly that some football players came to his aid during the melee. If the incident reaches the courtroom, will Beamer's ``family'' have football players testifying against football players?
Meanwhile, in the afterglow of its greatest triumph, Beamer's program continues to win and continues to embarrass itself, the head coach and the university. It's also obvious he still has no answers, in more ways than one.
LENGTH: Medium: 94 linesby CNB