THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 17, 1996 TAG: 9604170545
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
Criminal misconduct among college athletes simply reflects a societal problem.
It's not fair to cite the arrests of a few undergraduate jocks as evidence that the NCAA should start breaking ground for its own penal colony.
The sports pages may read like a police blotter, but crime among big-time college athletes is not epidemic. It just seems that way.
What's more, athletics are a microcosm of our society, and don't you ever forget it.
The spinmeisters and NCAA apologists are being kept very busy these days. You can see why. Impropriety among athletes is an embarrassing problem that just won't go away.
The issue is harder to ignore when basketball and football players from Virginia and Virginia Tech are in the news for their extracurricular activities.
If they held a top-25 basketball poll for off-court misconduct, U.Va. would be receiving more than a few first-place votes.
The arrest of star guard Harold Deane for trespassing and resisting arrest - he allegedly pushed two police officers - was the latest of several troubling incidents for the Cavaliers. And, one hopes, for U.Va. alumni.
Deane is the fourth U.Va. basketball player to be arrested in the span of just two months. Two others, freshmen Scott Johnson and Darryl Presley, were found guilty of shoplifting from a department store. Another, recruit Melvin Whitaker, goes on trial in June. He has been charged with malicious wounding after allegedly slashing a U.Va. football player across the face.
Of lesser interest for sports fans and amateur criminologists is the arrest in Charlottesville this week of Charles Preston, a freshman who was dropped from the U.Va. football squad earlier this year.
Preston was charged with assault and battery after he allegedly slammed another student's head through a car window. According to police, the two had argued about a parking space.
Whether it's Charlottesville or Lincoln, Neb., or Blacksburg, misplaced aggression on the part of athletes can get a school noticed in the worst way.
The arrest last week of Hokie quarterback Jim Druckenmiller for malicious wounding in connection with a bar fight comes on the heels of a grand jury's decision not to indict Tech football players Tony Morrison and James Crawford, accused of raping a female student. Both players still face a civil suit.
Students of the microcosm-of-our-society school of thought argue that athletes are no rowdier or more abusive to women than fraternity boys. That media coverage just makes it seem that way.
But in 1994, a survey was conducted of 30 college campuses. Research indicated that while male athletes made up 3.3 percent of the total student population, they were responsible for 19 percent of all reported assaults on women.
In any case, you needn't trot out the extreme example of Nebraska running back Lawrence Phillips to make the case that many coaches are very quick to forgive or overlook an athlete's misconduct in the real world.
When athletes guilty of crimes or boorish behavior are made out to be victims, college athletics are very much a microcosm of our society.
But despite evidence suggesting one is needed, NCAA member schools have rejected suggestions that they adopt a code of conduct for their athletes. Colleges make so much of academic requirements - admittedly much of it lip service. Why not establish behavioral standards, as well?
Of course, before they can do that, schools would need to acknowledge that there is something wrong with the attitudes and conduct of some of their athletes. by CNB