A joint CBS/Sports Illustrated investigation that examined rosters of the top 25 NCAA football teams and found that 7% of the players (that’s one out of every 14) had been in trouble with the law either before entering college or while attending college and playing for their teams. Here’s the funny part, if you count only scholarship players, the number goes up to 8.1%. In other words, the schools are seeking out the hooligans. Ah, but that’s football. Well, a former assistant coach at the University of San Diego and two former players were indicted in April 2011 for being part of a plot/scheme/artifice to influence the outcome of games and profit therefrom. The university president called the allegations “very serious.â€Â Depressing, until you realize that crime and sports are not a combination we must accept for winning. Herewith two stories from sports to inspire.
The first is the tale of Marquis Barnett – a 6-foot-7 high school basketball player at Cardozo High School in Queens. Since his sophomore year in high school, he has saved his mother from a violent boyfriend, watched everything his family owned destroyed in a fire, and lived in a homeless shelter twice. He has reported to practice hungry and then had to race home practice to meet the shelter’s curfew. And he has turned down recruiters from Arkansas, Kentucky, and Florida because he feels he needs to stay close to home to help his family. He is leaning toward Marist – in Poughkeepsie, NY.  And his family recently found a place in public housing. No more shelter, and all without a single crime by a young man whose only food often came from a teacher at Cardozo.
Then there is Texas Christian University – a Rose Bowl Champion – that did not have a single player with a record, before, during, and, so far, after college.Â
There is always a high road. It is possible to win without the felons. Coaches, presidents, and the NCAA need to draw some lines. There is a difference between using sports scholarships as a program of redemption for young men who have been dealt a bad hand and young men who are just bad.