Arrested development? It’s the Gators’ turn this year
The talking point — actually the giggling point — of the college football summer is that Urban Meyer’s Florida Gators have been charged with a total of 24 felonies and misdemeanors in the four-plus years of his stewardship. (The Orlando Sentinel provides the handy linked rundown.) And now you’re expecting me to laugh and slap my thigh and advise the Urban Crier, with whom we’ve had some fun over the months, to save his alligator tears for the judge. But I won’t.
Because I have some sympathy for the man.
Last summer Mark Richt met the press on Georgia’s media day, and 16 of the first 20 questions concerned not football — the Bulldogs had been voted preseason No. 1 for the first time in school history — but lawlessness. Eight of Richt’s players had been arrested in 2008. “Embarrassing,” Richt called it. Also “sad.” Also “a distraction.”
When Richt’s massively gifted team finished 116th in penalties among 119 Bowl Subdivision teams, the leap was made — undisciplined off the field, undisciplined on it. (In November Richt would deny any correlation, saying it was “coincidental.”) And rival fans made hay of Georgia’s discomfort, laughing and calling Richt, a man of deep convictions, a bald-faced hypocrite.
But now Georgia backers get to chuckle over Florida’s misdeeds and the public airing thereof. And we in the media have done our usual tut-tutting. (Here’s a column from Andrea Adelson of the Sentinel. Although Dennis Dodd of CBSsports.com defended the Gators, sort of.) But the cold truth is that, just as last year’s Georgia is this year’s Florida, this year’s Florida could well be next year’s … anybody.
No school holds the patent on decency. No school is impervious to the choices made by 85 or so young men who are lionized on campus and around town in a way that would make rock stars blush. No school does it completely “right” because no group of 85 can bat 1.000 when it comes to individual behavior.
Yes, it looks awful when such arrests take the form of clusters, but that didn’t mean Richt aided and abetted criminal behavior last summer or that Meyer does so now. (Urban Meyer, as we know, is named after a Pope.) Sometimes a coach’s shape-up message needs to be toughened, but messages go only so far. And if you’re going to be ranked No. 1 in the land, you won’t get there by signing guys away from the seminary.
As Dodd writes, a coach can get pushed out when the embarrassment becomes too great. But Dodd also notes Oklahoma was coming off a pedestrian-by-its-standards 9-3 season when Barry Switzer was deemed more trouble than he was worth. Meyer just won his second BCS title in three seasons. His program could be hit by 24 more charges and he’d be OK so long as the L’s don’t number more than one.
We who follow college football suffer a disconnect. We want to cheer on Saturdays without much caring what happens the other six days of the week. We hire our coaches to win. If they happen to mold character in the process, so much the better, but that’s not why they make their millions. They’re paid to win on Saturdays.
When it’s someone else’s players getting in trouble, we take it as a sign of the enemy’s inherent immorality. But at the highest level of college football, there are no saints. (Even the haloed Tim Tebow was penalized for taunting in the BCS title game.) What happened at Georgia and what’s happening at Florida can happen anywhere. So don’t laugh too hard at Urban Meyer. Your coach could be next.
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
112 comments Add your comment
POAD The CHOADE
June 19th, 2009
1:30 pm
Gotta love dumb Gator fans such as Steve. The article is about how players have been arrested, not how many MNCs they won. At least read the article before you post your drivel.
POAD The CHOADE
June 19th, 2009
1:32 pm
“Simple math tells you that in the same time UF has had 24 arrest that UGA has had 30.”
And your source is what?
Tim Tebow
June 19th, 2009
1:37 pm
Al ye shall witness as I come forth on a flaming chariot from the heavens.
Bow before me, I am the father, the son & the holy Tebow.
My hands are broken from circumcising the uncleansed in Malasia & other parts of the world.
Tim
June 19th, 2009
1:43 pm
UGA has had 30 in the same amount of time. Jesus, this stuff is like 2 week old news and you’re just getting around to talking about it Bradley?
Hey AJC, will you hire me? I most assuredly can piggyback off old stories myself and I’ll work for cheaper. Also, I look better.
Keating
June 19th, 2009
1:52 pm
Maybe the AJC has a backbone enough to investigate these set of facts. Attorney Huntley Johnson – Gainesville resident and UF Grad and Booster – has represented each of these kids in these criminal proceedings at a discounted rate. The kid becomes his client, pays a heavily discounted fee, after “write downs” or “write offs”. Or he represents the kid “pro bono” to satisfy the requirements of the Florida Bar. If this is true, he is – without any doubt – violating the NCAA rule against “improper benefits”, which is a MAJOR INFRACTION in each case. In order for this not to be a major infraction, Mr Johnson must demonstrate that all the legal fees charged to the kids are “reasonable and customary” to the satisfaction of the NCAA and that none of the fees were discounted, waived or written off. This is the first major problem for UF.
The second is the relationship this lawyer has with the State Attorney. He has a “close” relationship with State Attorney Bill Cervone who is a (you guessed it) Gainesville resident, UF Alumn and Gator Booster. Nearly all these charges against UF players have been reduced dramatically or dropped! Now, this one may be a little harder to prove, but its certainly worth looking into. Not to mention the issue of apparent prosecutorial misconduct.
The Orlando Sentinel began to scratch the surface last week.
Clay
June 19th, 2009
2:02 pm
Chuck and Matt on 680 The Fan actually spent a good bit of time about a week ago talking about how all of Florida’s arrests seem to be getting a pass…we all know if this was going on at Georgia, the media would be all over it…
Tina
June 19th, 2009
3:12 pm
Keating, you are correct. Where has the press been on this? If this was UGA, the Constitution would have 2 reporters on it fulltime. I read that story last week in the Orlando paper when it was forwarded to me. Wow. Talk about a red flag. All these kids get charged, then get off? And using the same attorney?
Pitbull
June 19th, 2009
4:37 pm
As an old UGA alum who has been around more than a few decades, college athlete (and non-athlete) student arrests have skyrocketed due to several reasons.
Reason 1: The legal drinking age in Georgia and many other states was changed from 18 to 21. I’m not judging the morality of it, just stating a fact. When I was in college very few students were arrested because drinking at 18 was legal. And a large number of athlete arrests are of the open container / underage drinking variety. College students are going to drink some.
Reason 2: The police today have in many instances lost their common sense. Take for instance the UGA basketball player who was taken into custody for crossing against the crosswalk light in the middle of the day and found to have an elevated alcohol level (below intoxication) which was reported by the media due to the cough syrup he was taking for a cold. I still think cops today watch too much Law and Order and will arrest an athlete where they would let a nonathlete go.
Reason 3: The recognition that the media (read that the Atlanta Journal Constitution) gives to athlete arrests in order to attract eyeballs to their website and to sell papers in order to generate higher revenue. They know it is an emotional issue and will generate controversy. Look at this article and the discuussions. I know the media is not responsible for the athletes doing something wrong, but they do not report every arrest by nonathletes and do not have to rub the athletes’ face in it when they make a mistake to turn a little more of the almighty dollar.
I have seen AJC articles on athletes arrested for the misdemeaners of having a tail light out, driving with an expired tag or license, failure to come to a complete stop, etc. Is this newsworthy? Do we read about it for the average individual who is not on an athletic scholarship? NO
I read where two ex UGA athletes were arrested recently for breaking the law? Why were they identified as ex athletes? Was that pertinent to the facts of the story? NO The AJC doesn’t identify John Doe or Mary Smith who gets arresnted for some charge as ex Clemson, Florida State, or Shorter College students. So why the need to do it with ex atheletes. To make more revenue.
A reminder to readers: newspapers make their money based on paper circulation numbers and eyeballs on their websites. That sets the advertisement rates they can charge and the media makes it’s money off of advertising.
The website is free to look at (or no one would go there) and the 75 cents the daily paper costs probably does not cover the cost of manufacturing it.
The bottom line with the media and what they report is that it is all about the money. It is about selling your soul for the almighty dollar.
archangeladidas
June 20th, 2009
3:08 am
10!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Go GATOTRS!
mike on hartwell lake
June 21st, 2009
9:15 pm
phuck phlorida
Deployed Dawg
June 22nd, 2009
1:34 am
I know that the game of college football has changed, but I disagree with the idea that a coach can’t do anything about his players’ behaviors. My father told me the story of being on a plane with the Grambling State football team in their hayday and said that every player was well dressed and extremely well behaved. He asked one of the players why they weren’t having some fun and acting like kids and his response was “Because Coach Robinson would kill us,” and he wasn’t saying it as a joke. I think Eddie Robinson won a game or two. . .
GatorsNow » Blog Archive » Gators News Wrap-Up for June 22nd
June 22nd, 2009
10:52 am
[...] What would be a Gators News Wrap-Up with out some more articles on the Gators’ arrest record. Mark Bradley from AJC.com has the Gators taking over where Georgia left off last year: Arrested development? It’s the Gators’ turn this year. [...]