November 2007 Friday Focus
Vol 3, No 3
Over the past couple of weeks, three incidents involving Missouri State University student-athletes have been well-publicized. The three events included an on-campus incident involving four football players last spring, two of whom are still in school; an off-campus incident involving two Lady Bears players in the summer; and an off-campus incident involving three Bears basketball players this fall, two of whom were subsequently not charged with any criminal offense.
It is important to understand that in all cases, the student-athletes were subject to the same consequences that other Missouri State students would face in such situations:
- They face legal charges, they have their own attorneys, and they will participate in necessary court appearances. These proceedings are completely independent of the University – the University does not create or maintain police or court records; it does not control access to, or the use of, those records. Such records are in the custody of the Springfield Police Department and the courts, and those records are publicly available just as they would be for all citizens.
- Where appropriate, Missouri State University students are subject to the University’s judicial proceedings, but when it comes to the findings or results of this judicial process, University officials are restricted from making any comments about a student’s educational record by the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
Unlike other students, the student-athletes also faced consequences for violating team rules. And, unlike most other students, their cases were publicized on the front page of the newspaper and as the lead story on the nightly news.
These incidents have served to illustrate at least three important considerations:
- Student-athletes, like all students, can occasionally make bad choices, and they then face and must pay consequences. I believe it is our responsibility to turn these instances into opportunities to help students learn how to make better decisions for their conduct.
- These incidents involve a small number of our more than 350 student-athletes and over 19,000 students on the Springfield campus, most of whom are fine citizens who represent the University well.
- Balancing the legal system’s adjudicative procedures, our students’ federally defined rights to privacy, all citizens’ legal rights to due process, and the community’s desire to be informed is a difficult task that, nonetheless, must be a goal of the University’s response to such matters.
There is no doubt that these three incidents have cast a temporary cloud over the Intercollegiate Athletics Department. That is why I chose to talk to the coaches, staff, and student-athletes on November 19. I wanted to share those remarks with you; they follow these introductory comments.
During that talk, I announced that I would form a Special Review Panel. I appointed that Panel on November 20 and gave it this four-point charge:
- Examine our policies and practices to determine how well we are communicating our standards and expectations for appropriate behavior by our student-athletes, beginning with recruiting and continuing through competition at Missouri State.
- Examine our policies and practices for monitoring behavior of student-athletes to enable and ensure as high a level of compliance with expectations as possible.
- Examine our policies and practices to determine if we are adequately prepared to react to different levels of legal involvement that a student-athlete may encounter, ranging from arrest, to facing criminal charges, to being convicted of a crime.
- Examine our policies and practices regarding how we respond to requests for public information and/or comment about students who may find themselves in potential legal jeopardy.
The membership of the panel and the complete memo providing the charge can be found on the web.
Please know that I am deeply disappointed by these events, as are the coaches and administrators. We are embarrassed for our teams and their families, our alumni and donors, our community, and, most importantly, our University. That is why we will work diligently to ensure that we do better in the future.
Thank you for your attention and comments.
Remarks to the Intercollegiate Athletics Department
November 19, 2007
Thank you for being here. I wanted an opportunity to visit with you personally and directly as a group and as members of the Missouri State University family.
I appreciate the contributions everyone in this department makes to the University. I thank our coaches, staff, and students for your respective roles in this program.
Athletics is obviously a major and very visible part of MSU. Over the years, the success and reputation of our athletics programs have been very strong, and that is because of the commitment, skills, and hard work each of you brings to your responsibilities. Your achievements have helped create a lot of favorable attention to, and affection for, the University.
Our student-athletes were sought after and recruited by a number of other institutions, and I am pleased you are here. I know you had choices, and I hope you feel you made a good one by coming to MSU. I am glad you made that choice. I am pleased you are here. I like our teams.
Whether it is fair or appropriate, intercollegiate athletics at Division I schools like Missouri State receive a great deal of attention and scrutiny from the media and the public. You are often in the public eye, and I suspect you knew that would be the case wherever you competed or worked.
Part of the reason for this extra scrutiny is because of the unique opportunities student-athletes have – from scholarships to special academic support services to chances for extra travel – and the list goes on.
Students who do not compete in intercollegiate athletics and University staff who do not work in athletics often strive just as hard and bring the same level of commitment to their activities as you. But the reality is that they do so without nearly as much public involvement and interest.
As a result of this level of attention, student-athletes and our athletics programs are perceived as representatives of the University with a frequency and an intensity experienced by few of the rest of us. Consequently, expectations for you and your behavior in response to those expectations take on special importance. Your responsibilities and obligations for behaving appropriately are heightened.
This past week, public information about the behavior of a handful of our athletes over the past seven months has caused concern about our reputation and about the degree to which we are living up to expectations for appropriate behavior.
The fact that this kind of trouble has been rare in the history of MSU athletics programs, especially in comparison to many other D-I schools, is important and I am grateful for it. But it does not change the fact that we now do face a challenge. How we now respond to that challenge is crucial – more crucial, in fact, than the individual instances giving rise to our current situation.
At this time, I think there are at least three important steps we need to take and I ask for your cooperation with each of them.
- I am forming a special review panel to examine our policies with regard to situations in which our student-athletes are alleged to have behaved in ways that do not meet our expectations or that result in outcomes such as arrest, the filing of criminal charges, or the conviction of criminal offenses.
- This panel will be composed of members of the University community to include students, faculty, and staff as well as members of the local community who have expertise or interest in manners such as these. It will have only one member from Intercollegiate Athletics, and that will be Casey Comoroski, our Associate Director of Athletics/Senior Women’s Administrator. I am in the process of requesting others to serve on this panel and will announce the complete composition of the group as soon as possible.
- This panel will have the full cooperation of Intercollegiate Athletics and the rest of the University, and I request that each of you diligently help this panel complete its work. Included in the charge to this group, I will ask it to identify best practices and make recommendations to the athletics department and to me about how the University should:
- communicate its overall standards and expectations for appropriate behavior by its student-athletes
- monitor that behavior to enable and ensure as high a level of compliance with expectations as possible
- deal with student-athletes who may face different levels of legal involvement, ranging from arrest, to facing criminal charges, to being convicted of a crime
- respond to requests for public information or comment about students who may find themselves in potential legal jeopardy.
- To all coaches and staff in Intercollegiate Athletics, I ask your continued help in making sure you do everything possible to communicate high expectations to your student-athletes about their academic performance and our standards for behavior.
All students at every University, including this one, face a number of temptations and possible pitfalls. Abuse of alcohol and the use of illegal drugs are at the top of the list. As educators and mentors, we owe it to our students to give the best possible guidance we can. You have close relationships with your players, and if those relationships are to achieve their greatest, long-term important meaning, they should allow you to talk directly, honestly, and caringly to your players about good behavior. - Finally, to our students, the greatest responsibility lies with you. I implore you to think carefully about the consequences of your behavior, to make good decisions, and to rely on what in your hearts you know to be right and wrong as roadmaps for your conduct. You do not want to make a mistake now that could jeopardize your opportunities and career later. And it can.
We are all here to guide you, not to guard you. Use us – coaches, faculty, staff - for that purpose. Whether you think it is fair or not, the level of scrutiny that many of you will now face will be higher than in the past.
I am confident that you want to meet that challenge because I have faith in you as students of this University.
Please let me know of any additional ways I can help you.