Re: UMaine: No Cure for the Summertime Blues but to BEAR the Months 'till October!
Perfection is too high an expectation. Even the best designed policies are going to lead to unfortunate situations. That's where someone needs the wisdom to realize that life isn't fair, and sometimes you need to move on. I'm not saying my solution is perfect. Just that it's less bad than any other one I can think of.
In your hypothetical, my solution would be that the university might be able to soften the blow if legal proceedings exonerated the player by allowing a redshirt for the 'lost' season. Again, it's not perfectly fair, but nothing is. And it's more feasible than the alternative.
With your plan, my fear is that, realistically, no A.D. is going to want to stick their neck out for a player knowing that they could be giving the university a huge black eye. And no player should have to compromise their legal defense to satisfy their athletic commitment. That's just ludicrous.
Again, I'm not willing to read too much into the choice of charges. Maybe if someone could give me an ironclad guarantee that the facts didn't support any other charge than a misdemeanor...but it still seems plausible that the DA showed compassion / took an easy win, knowing that Lomberg was already history at Maine.
edit:
Without being explicit about it, I'm assuming that an athletic director will be a bit of a coward regarding bureaucratic politics, but is an otherwise decent person. What if we relax that assumption (say, a football player at an SEC school). An unscrupulous AD could threaten to revoke a scholarship to force an accused player to compromise his legal defense, maybe even up to the point of perjury, to allow the AD to rationalize reinstatement of eligibility. Blech.
The criminal justice system and college sports are already imperfect enough as it is, without asking them to do each others' jobs. Keep 'em separate.
Originally posted by Drew S.
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In your hypothetical, my solution would be that the university might be able to soften the blow if legal proceedings exonerated the player by allowing a redshirt for the 'lost' season. Again, it's not perfectly fair, but nothing is. And it's more feasible than the alternative.
With your plan, my fear is that, realistically, no A.D. is going to want to stick their neck out for a player knowing that they could be giving the university a huge black eye. And no player should have to compromise their legal defense to satisfy their athletic commitment. That's just ludicrous.
Again, I'm not willing to read too much into the choice of charges. Maybe if someone could give me an ironclad guarantee that the facts didn't support any other charge than a misdemeanor...but it still seems plausible that the DA showed compassion / took an easy win, knowing that Lomberg was already history at Maine.
edit:
Without being explicit about it, I'm assuming that an athletic director will be a bit of a coward regarding bureaucratic politics, but is an otherwise decent person. What if we relax that assumption (say, a football player at an SEC school). An unscrupulous AD could threaten to revoke a scholarship to force an accused player to compromise his legal defense, maybe even up to the point of perjury, to allow the AD to rationalize reinstatement of eligibility. Blech.
The criminal justice system and college sports are already imperfect enough as it is, without asking them to do each others' jobs. Keep 'em separate.
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