Whatever coaches and the Oregon Athletic Department are doing to screen, educate, monitor, and create accountability among athletes, it isn’t enough.
The police report and various news articles on the forcible rape investigation of Damyean Dotson, Dominic Artis and Brandon Austin are horrific, even if no charges will be filed. The three cornered a young woman who’d been drinking and coerced her into gang sex.
Saturday night, reserve linebacker Rahim Cassell was arrested for driving under the influence. Head coach Mark Helfrich issued the standard statement.
While it’s normal for college athletes to want to party on Saturday night and chase girls, there have to boundaries and standards of decency. It might be tempting to dismiss Cassell’s arrest as a minor and normal occurrence, especially when juxtaposed against allegations of a brutal sex crime. Even though it’s something that happens across Division One football programs every spring, the fact remains that drunk drivers kill people.
It’s fine to have a few drinks. Just don’t get in the car and drive. Call a friend, a teammate, a coach, a cab, or grab a couch.
What’s particularly galling about the Cassell incident is that it came just a few hours after the spring game, after team leaders gave glowing, positive statements about staying focused and getting back to work, keeping the progress they made this spring fresh in their minds. Instead, one of their own gets arrested a few hours later.
Cassell was going to be counted on to add depth at linebacker, where the Ducks already have concerns on the field. Tyson Coleman and Danny Mattingly missed the spring game with injuries.
It’s ironic that new defensive coordinator Don Pellum, who still coaches the inside linebackers, was hired on a platform of discipline and organization. True discipline walks its talk. True discipline is 24/7, with players looking out for players, taking care of each other, making good decisions in the classroom and on Saturday night.
Every season as part of their orientation, new players get education on dealing with the media, NCAA regulations, the pitfalls of fame and public visibility, training similar to what new players are offered prior to their entry into the NFL. The training should be intensified and expanded, to include some consciousness-raising insight into sexual conduct and the meaning and importance of consent.
It’s a societal issue, certainly. Young people are bombarded with sexual imagery and distortions, including the web, which teaches them that cruelty, dominance and exploitation are erotic and sexy. Some kids, though gifted with athletic talent, lack models, information, a foundation to equip them for an impossibly wide range of temptations and experiences. They’re stars now. They can have anyone and anything they want. It’s a powerful cocktail of sensations troubled kids, like Colt Lyerla from last year’s team, find difficult to handle.
It’s a queasy feeling, seeing Oregon gain attention for all the wrong reasons. The coaches were hired to develop young men and make the Top Ten, not Outside the Lines. Serious doubts have to be considered, particularly in the basketball program, where Dana Altman seems to have a quick-fix, John Calipari mentality, accepting transfers from all over the country, seemingly any suspect character case who can dunk. Austin, for one, fled Providence College in the wake of a previous rape investigation.
Oregon coaches allowed the three to play in the PAC-12 and NCAA tournaments, earning bonuses for Altman, his staff and Athletic Director Rob Mullens. The football coaches got performance awards for their 11-win season, top ten ranking and Alamo Bowl win over Texas.
A part of those bonuses ought to be forwarded to a Lane County crisis hotline, women’s support center and Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Accountability starts at the top.
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