Miles's blog

Notre Dame’s starting quarterback was arrested early yesterday morning following his attempt to run from the police who were investigating a party.  The player, Tommy Rees, resisted arrest and either assaulted or tried to assault an officer.  (The description given by the police was he “ lifted a knee to an officer during the arrest and had to be pepper sprayed while on the ground.”  They also said an officer had the wind knocked out of him but not as a result of being kneed by Rees.  Being the Notre Dame in South Bend can’t hurt, Rees has been charged with only misdemeanors following his booking on felony charges, including assaulting an officer. 

Not having read the reports I can see this kind of case filing going either way if an officer was not injured more severely than some scrapes and having the wind knocked out of him.  On the other hand I expect there was some pressure on the DA, probably implicit rather than explicit, not to file a felony if this was a close call.  Starting the case as a misdemeanor gives attorneys on both sides lots of room to maneuver in terms of deferred prosecutions and diversion programs.  Rees was also drunk, having a blood alcohol of .11.  He is 19 years old.

Let’s see what actually happens to him.  As you might recall Boston University summarily kicked two players off their hockey team following allegations this season.  Certainly their charges of sexual assault were significantly more severe than what Rees did, but the immediacy and severity of BU’s response was impressive.  Notre Dame, on the other hand, has a different history.

According to Yahoo Sports, former Irish wide receiver Michael Floyd had three alcohol-related incidents at the school.  He was suspended during spring practices but never missed a game.  You will love the coach’s explanation for why at least suspension for a single game was unnecessary: 

[Coach] Kelly "suspended" Floyd for four and a half months, which essentially kept him out of spring workouts, but he was allowed to participate in voluntary workouts and didn't miss a game. Kelly took some heat for his treatment of the situation, but Kelly maintained he would have kept Floyd out the entire season if he felt he hadn't learned his lesson.

Learned his lesson which time?  The final time?  I mean really.  What kind of message does this send to your team, the student body, and society at large?  As long as you are a really good football player the consequences of breaking the law, abusing alcohol, violating school policy and taking actions detrimental to your own well-being are virtually non-existent.  I am not sure any undergrad at Notre Dame with three alcohol-related.   Apparently Floyd was allowed to remain a team captain.  According to the ESPN, Notre Dame suffered an alcohol-related fatality when one of their recruits, a 17-year old football player from Cincinnatti died after falling from a balcony while drunk on spring break in Florida.  Leaving out the question of why high schoolers are going on unsupervised spring break vacations, what will it take for Notre Dame to realize underage drinking is a problem?

I suppose the answer to my question is that the only situation which will cause college sports to change is when the drinking impacts their ability to win football games.  Right now the school is better off letting players with alcohol issues remain with the team so that they can get a coveted bowl berth, thus earning the school a nice payout, and the coach, who almost certainly has a reward in his contract for bowl wins or final rankings, makes significant coin.  If drunken players caused losses we would see kids kicked off the teams immediately, but since players like Paul Hornung proved you can be both a drunk and a Hall of Famer, alcohol abuse is not near as big a problem as being a fumbler, or having slow speed in the 40-yard dash.

Underage drinking, of course, is a problem much bigger than college sports, and obviously many, many undergrads drink illegally.  I would hope there are consequences for all of them.  But when a high-profile undergrad is allowed to drink, run away, and resist arrest without any identifiable punishment, it undermines efforts to address underage drinking on his campus, and perhaps on colleges in general.  I hope Notre Dame chooses to take action against Tommy Rees.  But unless he is beaten out by one of the other three candidates for starting QB  I doubt they will.  (By the way, did you notice the headline of the article stressed the QB position and not any problems with alchol or assaulting the police?)