From Wednesday until early Sunday morning, approximately 40,000 young adults engaged in the college campus tradition that is Welcome Week.
They experienced what is quickly becoming another IU-specific praxis Monday evening.
Sophomore Emmitt Holt, 19, and freshman Thomas Bryant, 18, both IU men’s basketball players, were cited for alcohol possession at 12:50 a.m. Saturday morning.
The citations constitute the sixth incident involving members of the IU men’s basketball team since Feb. 14, 2014 — the seventh, if you include Troy Williams and Stanford Robinson’s suspensions for failed drug tests announced Nov. 3, 2014.
All in all, this is my third time responding to offenses by players within the IU athletics department this year. It’s frustrating, it’s disappointing and verging on insipid.
However, I find it hard to place the onus on any one individual or institution.
This pattern of behavior is a culmination of failures — individually; small, collectively; a nightmare — for a program that, just as it begins to build momentum, is repeatedly knocked down.
Coach Tom Crean is a popular scapegoat for fans, although I think even the most avid Crean-hater would agree it is difficult to control these athletes without a considerable amount of hand-holding and absurd levels of policing.
Ultimately, a coach has to trust his players to uphold the program on the court and off it, and these young men have repeatedly shown they’re not up to the task.
But put yourself in Holt and Bryant’s shoes. Besides being substantially larger, they’re not all that different from yours.
College is a time for making mistakes, and anyone who has made a mistake is simply lucky enough not to have had their transgressions publicized to the entire student body — let alone an entire rabid fan base.
There aren’t many feasible long-term solutions, and incidents will only increase as the visibility of college athletes increases.
If there are safeguards available to the IU basketball team, they start with education and accountability.
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. If seniors and veteran players care about the welfare of this team and the success of their season, they need to take charge and ensure everyone is conducting themselves smartly, in a way that doesn’t hurt themselves or the program.
Holt and Bryant, I think, can be looked upon with some leniency — it was Welcome Week; they weren’t visibly endangering anyone. Even Holt, who is looking at his second infraction, should be met with a four-game suspension, max.
Will these suspensions, when they come, cost IU basketball this season? Unlikely. But if this trend continues, we are looking at the tipping point.
There’s only so much beating a program can take before it has to answer, deservedly or not, to this growing epidemic.
vziege@indiana.edu
