Here's your resolution: Treat athletes as students

ALAN GOLDENBACH The Bronx Bomber

Picture, for a moment, English Prof. Ralph Williams storming into Tom Goss's office demanding that the new athletic director radically reform the disciplinary program of the athletic department.

"To grant or not to grant convicted felons scholarship at this University," the ridiculously out-of-place Williams might say, "is the question."

As Goss shakes his head in disbelief wondering what the heck he got himself into with this job, he is at least able to relate to what his contemporary at Fresno State, Allen Bohl, is thinking right now.

Last week, Fresno State professor John Shields, asking "Have we no shame?" demanded the California state university impose a code of conduct for the school's athletes.

His ultimatum comes in light of Fresno State's recruitment of a convicted spouse abuser, a pair of accusations that two other athletes beat their girlfriends, a case still pending where two Fresno basketball players are charged with battery of another student and, to top it all off, while the men's basketball program is in the midst of an investigation of possible point-shaving, the most heinous crime as far as sports on the field is concerned.

Nothing as far as enacting such a code has happened yet. The proposal that Shields laid out before the university's Academic Senate hinges upon two demands: a new code of conduct for players and consideration of "good character" when athletes are recruited. There is also a provision that if such a measure is not instituted, the faculty will declare "no confidence" in the university's administration and athletic department. The faculty will vote on the resolution next week.

According to Shields, such a resolution became necessary because Fresno State administrators and coaches have adopted an "overly tolerant attitude toward student-athlete antisocial behavior and criminal conduct."

This proposal is by far the most rash stance taken in an era when too many big-time student-athletes conduct themselves in a manner that shows little regard for the law, whether that law be laid down by the government or the educational institution.

Suspensions, whether they be for part of a game, a whole game or a season, have not served as a deterrent to misconduct. Revocations of scholarships, the apparent next-most-stringent measure, have also fallen by the wayside as a scare tactic. Seemingly continuous internal investigations conducted by all schools once a hint of impropriety arises obviously have not remedied this problem by any means.

And there is a simple reason why these measures have been ineffective. University administrators, whether it be a public relations maneuver or not, keep pushing for the elimination of the double-standard that exists for student-athletes with regard to discipline. Creating a code of conduct for student-athletes only makes this double-standard more omnipresent because it compromises the efforts university administrations have made to suppress the double-standard.

If Shields thinks that his code is going to right the ship at Fresno State, he's dead wrong. What he has identified as problems in his school's athletic department are not unique to Fresno State, nor are they unique to intercollegiate athletics in general. Spousal abuse is one of the most pressing issues in American society today.

If all it took to rid this country of such gargantuan social ills was some code of conduct, don't you think such a code would be legislated by now?

If there is one party that should be creating a code of conduct, it is the Fresno State athletic department. For itself.

The sure-fire way of avoiding any such public relations fiascoes like the ones it faces right now, is to not affiliate itself with shady characters with any criminal past or links to unfavorable characters.

As far as the misconduct surrounding the men's basketball team, Fresno State has no one to blame but itself. The athletic department should never have hired someone like Jerry Tarkanian in the first place to rebuild its program. Tarkanian is a man who has pushed NCAA laws to the limit and then some throughout his more than 20 years as a college basketball coach at Long Beach State and UNLV before coming to Fresno State.

People like Tarkanian are always going to have an ominous aura about them; so why step on dangerous ground?

Is that a prejudicial and perhaps an unfair stance to take with people who deserve a second chance? Absolutely.

Does it eliminate any chance of public backlash like Shields' demands? Absolutely.

As for the problems that arise after the athletes have arrived in a school's program, don't employ any special code to determine the amount of discipline they face. Treat them as you would other students facing the same charges.

And then they might behave like students instead of as athletes.

-Alan Goldenbach can be reached via email at agold@umich.edu

09-22-97