Lacrosse ugliness at U.Va.

I just don't agree. Sorry. And I think most recidivism studies would support me.

 

Not only that, but I was a sophomore taking Algebra II. That means I took Trig as a junior, Calc as a senior - the "smarty pants" math track. And I got cut NO SLACK for taking the harder courses.

Interestingly, my parents weren't at all worried or upset. I'm not even sure my mom (math whiz) offered to help me with my homework.

But I really really did not want the embarrassment of being kicked off the team. A fire was sufficiently lit under my butt.

 

Congratulations on being perfect at age 16. Not everyone is.

More importantly and less snidely, not everyone responds to the same kinds of motivation in the same way. Throwing the book at everyone who slips up one time may work on you. It doesn't work on everyone.

 

Wouldn't it be on the record? He was over 18). College kids do dumb shit but it usually does not involve violent rage.

 

Did that rule go over well with everyone? Was it accepted and not challenged at all? Just curious.

 

Was this a school rule?

And I find it really hard to believe.

West By God mandates a 2.0 gpa to play high school sports.
I never heard of any public high school system with anything higher.

The NC High School Athletic Assocation allows student athletes to compete with a 1.5 gpa or better.
I ARE SMART!
At least district upped it to a 2.0.

 

If Virginia knew of the conviction, it was on UVA not to recruit him. If UVA found out later, it was on the school to kick him out. Once a kid reaches college, a coach will likely kick an athlete off the team for a serious crime.

As to whether something that happens in high school should keep someone from college athletics, that's up to the individual school on a case-by-case basis, in my book.

 

I actually agree with you that attempts to apply a blanket rule -- one screw up, however minor, and you're done -- is probably taking it too far.

But let's be clear about what we're doing by saying this: We're protecting the George Huguleys to the detriment of the Yeardley Loves. Student athletes have to be held to a higher standard than the general student body, or else we need to come out and admit that the entire premise of collegiate athletics is a complete sham.

Virginia's second-chance policy in this situation contributed to the death of another student, another member of its athletic department. That doesn't not mean they're primarily responsible, legally or morally. That's ultimately on Huguley. But their department policy contributed to it. We can try to argue this in an academic manner by saying "They could not have foreseen this" and "It's easy to view this in retrospect" but real life does not play out in academic or message board arguments.

Virginia had a chance to hold itself to the standard Lugnuts is talking about, by telling him he was no longer allowed to be a member of the lacrosse team (and since NCAA lacrosse does not require that athletes sit out a year when transferring, he would have been free to attend any school that would have him) but it did not.

Ultimately a kid who had shown in the past he was willing to get violent -- and we're not going to argue facts not in evidence, like the cop made it up or provoked him, because as far as we know that did not happen so to play Devil's Advocate is silly -- later beat another student athlete's head against a wall until she died.

George Huguley was not a kid from a rough background who never got a break, overcame a lot, and just needed a second chance in life for a youthful mistake. But he got one anyway from the Virginia athletic department. And whether he did it intentionally or not, he killed a girl with that second chance. Virginia can keep its policy of some tolerance for arrests and alcohol-related incidents, and it likely will, but they should do so knowing they put people like Love at risk in the interest of giving those like Huguley every possible chance to do what is already expected of them.

There is, at the very least, a moral conflict there.

 

This was one of those situations where you just knew after reading the details of what he did to her that there must be something else in his past. You knew there must have been a prior incident where he displayed intense rage or physically attacked someone. So now we know. I'm sure there are more incidents similar to this one that were never reported. And previous posters are right. Normal drunk college students do not tell small policewomen they are going to kill them in a fit of drunken fury. Uttering a death threat to a police officer should be cause enough to get an athlete thrown off a team.

Having said that, I also don't think one DUI should necessarily be cause for removal from a team. It's one thing to blow a .08 and comply with the police when you are pulled over. It's another thing to blow a .19 and take them on a high speed chase. There's no way to make blanket rules about a lot of this stuff. As others have said, it has to be on a case by case basis. Kids have to be allowed to make their mistakes. I know many people who were not the best teenagers. Who did some really stupid stuff. But they are all accomplished, productive adults now. I don't know if they would have turned out as well had the adults and teammates in their lives given up on them.

But some incidents are very telling. This prior record says a lot about the kind of person Huguley is. It doesn't take a psychologist to read those details and know that there is something very wrong with this individual.

 

Great post. Very levelheaded. I admit to not feeling very levelheaded about this at the moment.

I don't advocate what my high school did. And if I really stop and think about it, that may have been a rule that only applied to my team, implemented by an anal retentive coach. I can't imagine the entire football team had a B in every class. Although, they did suck. But the wrestling and soccer teams won state titles... and I'm pretty sure those guys were not held to the same standards. But it was the conservative South in the late 80s. Things weren't necessarily fair... but these were our rules.

It doesn't mean I advocate that policy now... I only brought it up to question if we've gone too far in the other direction in terms of leeway with student athletes. And students in general, actually.

On DUIs -- I know some of you have had them. And I don't mean to be judgemental. If you lose somebody close to you, you'll feel the way I do.

The state of Georgia and many other states do now apply a "blanket rule" for DUI-- mandatory jail time. It doesn't matter what you blew over the legal limit. It doesn't matter if you were nice to the arresting officer or not. DUI = Jail. The deaths of innocent people from DUI is that serious of a problem.

 

Doesn't that put you on the dean's list?[/hidoh]