Crime Plays: Why the NCAA Needs an NFL-Style Personal Conduct Policy

Recently, the NCAA and the NFL began exploratory discussions about how they can work together to stem the flow of goodies from professional agents to college football players. 

If they ever reach an agreement, maybe they can call it the Reggie Rule.  

While cooperation between the NCAA and the NFL is long overdue, their talk about money is like worrying about the smell of smoke when the house is on fire. 

A recent study by Jeff Benedict, a professor at Southern Virginia University, indicates that there were 70 arrests in college football on felony or misdemeanor charges involving violence, weapons or substance abuse in the first eight months of this year. And according to my own research, more than 45 college football players have been arrested since those statistics were compiled. 

A University of Connecticut lineman was arrested on child pornography charges only yesterday, while an Iowa wide receiver was found in possession of marijuana, cocaine, prescription drugs and thousands of dollars in cash. 

One ex-con is even a Heisman Trophy finalist.

Oregon’s LaMichael James was arrested in February and charged with menacing, strangulation and assault after he got into a fight with his girlfriend. 

How romantic.     

He plead guilty to harassment and was sentenced to 10 days in jail but wound up with an ankle bracelet because the jail was overcrowded. He was suspended for only one game. I’m sure the fact that he’s their leading rusher had nothing to do with it.

Six other Ducks have been involved in fights, accused of theft or charged with assault or DUI this year. Pac-10 champs, indeed. 

Still, we all know the SEC is the toughest conference in college football. Players from Tennessee, Arkansas, LSU, Kentucky, Clemson and Ole Miss have been arrested for a variety of offenses, including DUI, assault and fighting with cops. Eleven players on the Georgia football team have been cuffed, with even the athletic director resigning after his own DUI arrest. And over at Florida, Gators have racked up more than 30 arrests since 2005.

As impressive as that sounds, the (former) Urban Meyer gang will have to try harder over the next few months to top Penn State, which holds the national title in player arrests with 46 from 2002-2008. Poor JoePa, he must be so disappointed. 

In all, football players at more than 50 Division I-A schools have been arrested so far this year.

The arrest of Chris Rainey, a wide receiver at (where else?) Florida earlier in the season is illustrative of the broader problem. 

He was arrested and charged with aggravated stalking for sending his ex-girlfriend a text saying, "time to die (expletive)."

Following the incident, head football coach Urban Meyer was widely quoted as saying Rainey often said “inappropriate, wrong, non-thought out” things. 

Sorry, coach. Non-thought out is telling your girlfriend she looks fat in those jeans. 

I’m all for second chances, which Rainey got after serving a five-game suspension. But at what point do you start to hold yourself to a higher recruiting standard, especially when taxpayer dollars subsidize your football program?

It’s utterly beyond reason that neither the athletic director, the university president, the SEC nor the NCAA has intervened to discipline the Florida program, including the (now former) head coach.  

If 30 guys you hired and supervised at work were arrested in a few years' time, don’t you think your boss would have something to say about it?

The repeated failure of head coaches, universities and conferences to take criminal activity as seriously as free hot dogs at an alumni barbecue means it’s time for the NCAA to adopt a personal conduct policy similar to the one instituted in the NFL. 

Otherwise, what’s the message? Steal a car, just don’t accept one as a gift? 

The current compliance paradigm focuses on academics and gifts. It lacks any minimum criteria for personal conduct. 

Obviously, the collegiate version of the personal conduct policy shouldn’t fine players since they don’t get paid (though maybe they should). But coaches, universities and conferences that continue to tolerate criminal activity, especially by their star players, could be.

Indeed, any personal conduct policy should contain provisions for holding coaches, administrators, schools, conferences and the NCAA itself accountable for instituting appropriate player education, discipline and remediation following violations of the law. 

And any such policy should be drafted with input from the athletes themselves so that sensible policies can be developed and implemented fairly.

The overwhelming majority of college athletes represent their universities honorably, but the ones who break the law scar everyone’s reputation and set the wrong example. 

The NCAA has the right idea talking to the NFL. They just need a new game plan.