ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 25, 1997 TAG: 9702250111
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
Virginia Tech is getting tough with its athletes. It's about time.
As for the coaches, life gets easier. When someone is arrested now, it's athletic director Dave Braine who must be the bad cop, which is different than the cop-out that got Tech's football program the soiled national reputation it has today.
Braine is the man who will have the power to suspend those who are charged with breaking the law via mandatory sanctions. He's been given a big stick.
However, in the university's Board of Visitors meeting Monday, hometown Rector Henry Decker didn't just point his finger at the multiple players whose more than 20 arrests have brought embarrassment to the school.
Tech President Paul Torgersen and Braine revealed plans to improve student-athlete behavior through new guidelines that include specific sanctions for specific legal charges.
``We will be hard-line,'' Braine said to the board. ``We have been embarrassed.''
That's when Decker, while praising the work of a 10-person board which created the framework for dealing with a problem Tech has had in only one program, said the new regulations came up short.
Decker said the coaches should be held accountable, too, and he got little argument, at least in public session, from his fellow board members.
``With all of the assistance, and all of the money we spend on athletics, and the fact that the salaries that they're paid, if they cannot be held accountable .... They have more ability to influence than anyone else does,'' Decker said, pointedly, to Braine, who stood, looking somewhat taken aback, hands in pockets, listening in silence.
Football coach Frank Beamer was in Hawaii vacationing, and his name wasn't mentioned in the Squires Student Center meeting room, but Decker's words may have resonated as far as Diamond Head.
What was a problem in Beamer's program has become an often-discussed issue with which an entire university still is trying to cope.
``We went through a whole year, and they felt that somebody was not getting the message across, and that's why we have repetition,'' Decker said. If someone had said ``that we meant business, that we wouldn't stand for this, and I think somehow, we've got to hold these people responsible.''
Decker is correct.
There were some not-so-hidden messages in Monday's revelations. The only coach on the 10-person committee who came up with the plan presented is Beamer. The only athlete was Shawn Scales, a stand-up guy and a member of the football team.
``Frank was on the committee,'' Braine said. ``He obviously approves of what we're doing here today.''
Why shouldn't he? Besides team rules such as curfews and missed study halls, the discipline in the football and other sports programs will be in the hands of Braine and an appeals committee, on which he sits.
Torgersen and Braine, before and after the session, also made it clear neither was happy with one weak-kneed decision made before the Orange Bowl by the football program.
With decals paid for by the athletic department, players who so desired were permitted to display the uniform numbers of suspended and arrested teammates on their helmets, seen during the national telecast of the bowl game.
``I wasn't happy when I learned that,'' Torgersen said.
``I wish it hadn't happened,'' Braine said.
It won't happen again, Torgersen promised. In a two-page ``statement of expectations'' that every Hokie athlete will be required to sign, one clause states that a player will not alter team uniforms.
The new policy, in itself, is impressive. The seriousness with which the committee went about its work is obvious. In forming the policies, Braine and his group consulted with Big East Football Conference brethren at Miami and Syracuse, and also with administrators at Nebraska, Penn State and North Carolina.
The regulations on behavior probably is the toughest in college athletics, and they include actions during the recruiting process, rules on behavior for enrolled student-athletes and separate sanctions, whether the athlete is charged with a felony.
They are likely to go into effect by mid-March. Their cost will be minimal, considering the peace of mind it will bring to a program reveling in football success but wracked by charges and counter-charges.
There are still many questions to be answered, both in and out of court. Just how many of the football players charged will be convicted? In the August melee which supposedly involved more than 100 people, how could the only ones indicted be eight football players and one former player?
It's likely some players will be exonerated. Some will return to the football team. Some will be gone. Those who do stay, however, aren't as likely to be repeat offenders and return to uniform.
In response to too many arresting developments, Tech is making clear where the buck stops.
The coaches are still in charge of their programs. They just aren't as much in charge as they were before.
That has to be an improvement. It can't be any worse than it has been.
LENGTH: Medium: 95 linesby CNB