The Right Thing

This may sound rather naive on my part, and with the money that football brings into schools, this will never happen, but in the wake of that melee Saturday at the Orange Bowl, football operations should be scrapped for the year at both Miami and Florida International. It was an absolute disgrace what happened. If this was a smaller school these thugs would not only have been kicked off the team, but probably expelled. College institutions such as Miami and Florida International should not be exceptions to the rule. If you beat up another student in the classroom, wouldn't they throw you out? Is there any difference here? Thousands of kids go to these schools, and what happened on the field happened in their name. Look, while the great majority of NFL talent plays college football, the great majority of college football players do other things after graduation besides play pro football. Albert Hainsworth, the idiot lineman from Tennessee that decided to rearrange the face of a Dallas Cowboy center got a five game suspension and a half million in missed game checks. Two Indiana Pacers were suspended for the rest of the season following that brawl in Detroit a couple years ago. Yet, those classless acts were in the pro's. Public money goes into these colleges, through financial aid at least, and should be held to a higher standard. You represent much more in a school, it's all about the name on the front, not the name on the back or the supplier of your jersey or shoes. People thought it was nuts when the University of Vermont suspended it's hockey season a few years ago over hazing. Hazing is a common practice that most people look the other way on, and pretty much is standard operating procedure at all levels. Humiliating your freshman to build team strength pales in comparison into public thugery over a football game. While UVM was rightly critizied for going overboard, I live in Vermont and the coaches should have been fired for that, whatever these two schools do, and Miami's reputation is bad enough, will be an ineffectual slap on the wrist. Coaches should be let go, and programs should be suspended for the year. Accountability needs to be taken. We, as adults, have not only the right, but the responsibility to show kids right from wrong. Anything less than a severe punishment sends out the message that this kind of behavior is acceptable, and we all know it's not. Send the mesage, clean house and throw these twitheads out of school. College is a privilege, not a right.