Academic and athletic integrity

Kudos to Virginia Tech for throwing Marcus Vick off its football team, as noted in this dispatch from the Associated Press.

In an era when college athletes have grown perhaps too infallible in their schools' eyes, it is refreshing to see a university not just discipline one of its rotten apples but to do so when that misguided player is the team's only veritable star athlete.

It may have taken a few charges for Virginia Tech to give Mr. Vick the permanent boot, but the school had suspended him before and disciplined him multiple times.

By comparison, consider the University of Wisconsin. Marcus Randle El has been able to publicly speculate about his leadership role on the UW football squad next season despite having just been arrested for the second time since he joined the team.

Is Mr. Randle El the exception to the rule?

Another standout Badger, Booker Stanley, also just found himself arrested for the second time during his stint with the UW gridiron team. And while his future remains uncertain, it is increasingly clear that he has come to know a locker room culture at UW where players are simply above the law.

I'm a big college football fan. I probably watched 10 bowl games over the winter break, can ramble off geeky analysis of the BCS and once began a class review session by bickering with my professor on the level of quality of PAC 10 teams. I love watching great players make great plays.

But it breaks my heart to see schools have their reputations soiled by the clear double standard they offer their football teams. The University of Colorado, as I have previously discussed, was an embarrassment for all too long when the school kept Gary Barnett on board as head coach. And it can be agonizing to watch some post-game press conferences and wonder how some of these players are possibly getting above a “D” average in class with their rhetoric skills (or lack thereof).

But it hurts worst of all to see UW cheapened by its football team all too often. This is a serious academic school with considerable national integrity and a tier-1 status. Every time a student ambassador – and that is what football players are – proves thuggish, stubborn or academically inept, it is an embarrassment to the whole school. As someone who will soon be displaying a UW diploma on my wall, that extends on a very personal level to me. And yet so little action is taken to show that we don't tolerate such behavior.

UW would do well to take a hint from Virginia Tech. All students should be treated equally within the academic confines of the university, but student athletes should become acquainted with a zero tolerance policy when it comes to their staying on the team.