Posted on 12/08/2001 3:59:22 PM PST by Dan from Michigan
There you have it.
If you don't know, Nebraska has more Academic All-Americans than ANY school in the NCAA, including Notre Dame and Stanford.
Right... We need FACTS! ;)
Wednesday, October 30, 1996
ETHICS:
Sports industry must decisively crack down on all convicts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two weeks ago, there was a decision taken by a university official that was almost unprecedented in the world of college sports.
A university president, not a coach or athletic director, imposed sanctions on the school's football team when team members broke the law.
This is the situation in a nutshell: On Oct. 7, at least six members of the University of Rhode Island football team rushed into the Theta Delta Chi fraternity house, while 25 of their teammates barred every exit from the house. The six players allegedly beat up three fraternity members. Four days later, an in-house investigation was completed.
In light of the findings, university President Robert Carothers decided to forfeit the team's next game, on Oct. 19 against Connecticut, thus surrendering all revenue that the school would have taken in. Needless to say, the decision damaged the team's chances for the Yankee Conference title. This was no slap on the wrist. This was decisive action taken against a team whose members had violated the law.
"This is not about football," Carothers said. "This is about community standards. This is about character."
The trailblazing doesn't stop there, for the university sanctions continued with two players being removed from the team and four others being suspended indefinitely.
This happens alongside a time when Lawrence Phillips, late of the Nebraska football team, gets convicted on battery charges for pushing his ex-girlfriend down the stairs, only to receive a four-game suspension from head coach Tom Osbourne and continued play in a national championship game. Finally, a person with the power to make a decisive ruling in light of alleged or proven judicial infractions actually does so.
This decision takes on even greater significance in light of the banter surrounding this past weekend's marquee matchup in pro football, with Barry Switzer coaching the Cowboys against Jimmy Johnson's Dolphins.
I will never forget a Sports Illustrated cover in 1987 with then-star Oklahoma Sooner quarterback Charles Thompson being led to a police car in handcuffs after being convicted on drug trafficking charges and sentenced to prison.
This event was just the final straw that finally got Switzer booted out of Oklahoma after a tenure that saw steroid abuse, machine gun fire from the football dorm, fights and charges of sexual assault. The sad part was that the school's administration stood idly by, counting the Sooners' take from the Orange Bowl.
Or how about Jimmy Johnson's University of Miami football program, comprised of teams that were so notorious that the word "convicts" was interchangeable with "Hurricanes". His grip and the grip of Dennis Erickson (now with the Seattle Seahawks) were so loose that Sports Illustrated called for the temporary termination of the program in a cover story.
Through all of the hype leading up to the game this Sunday, there was no mention of the shameless way these men allowed their teams to flaunt the law and continue playing while the universities seemed to do little, if anything, to stem the tide.
The worst in all of this is the way that the University of Nebraska has handled the exploits of Tom Osbourne's team.
When the Cornhuskers won the national championship a year ago, they had on the field at some point or another a convicted batterer in Phillips, a wide receiver with attempted murder charges pending in Riley Washington and a defensive lineman, Christian Peter, who had served out a conviction for sexual abuse.
It is infuriating that the University of Nebraska administration would have allowed people like this to represent their institution, not to mention allowing them to attend the school on scholarships.
This blatant disregard is brought into even more stark relief by this fact: When the New England Patriots drafted Peter and found out about his track record, they promptly cut him. Now let's compare: an institute of higher learning allows Peter to stay in school while the NFL, not known for it's scruples, doesn't pick him up.
It is naive to think that collegiate sports isn't big business and a prime moneymaker for the universities. This does not, however, give university administrators the right to let members of said teams, and the student body as a whole, run roughshod over the law and school policy while remaining in school and continuing to compete.
The actions taken by Carothers need to herald a new way in which universities handle these sorts of infractions by members of their athletic teams: decisively and with authority, instead of in a haphazard, passive manner.
As an example of university policies that need to be given more credence, a task force at the University of Nebraska, enjoined in October of 1995, made this recommendation: "That the University of Nebraska-Lincoln adopt a policy of zero-tolerance of abusive or violent behavior that disrupts the community by threatening the health or safety of any person or persons."
Amen.
End of article.
This article and the events that it talks about happened a few years ago. But the events described above, and MANY others, set my opinion of Nebraska. The Cornhuskers have a long history of recruiting criminals and no amount of name-calling will change that. There are lots of teams that have done as bad or worse (FSU), but I don't buy into the hype that Nebraska's actions are excuseable because "everybody does it." It's very sad that it doesn't bother people to have criminals represent their institutions. Baseball, basketball, and pro football have the same problems.
I love it when people don't know what they are talking about! ;)
Go to the Verizon/CoSIDA web site, the organization which is responsible for the Academic All-American program and makes sure that programs meet certain standards, etc.
As of August 2001, Nebraska has the highest number of first-, second- and third- team Academic All Americans in the nation with 181. More than Notre Dame. More than MIT. More than UCLA.
Nebraska student-atheletes earned 13 NCAA Today's Top Eight Awards, more than any other school. The football team has nine, the most of any individual sport in the nation.
So, know what you talk of! ;)
How many players did you name? 3? In over 100 years of football? I will agree, Coach Osborne blew it with Phillips. Should have cut the guy. The others I knew of, but forgot what the status of them turned out to be.
Show us some more names. Please. Go on.
Again, I hope you will provide some facts to back this you. You did the braying, now back it up! ;)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.