A HIGHER BAR AT UMAINE

Another month at the University of Maine, another report of charges against student athletes. In what has become a depressing pattern over the last year, these young adults – and sometimes their coaches – have been caught breaking the rules, breaking the law and damaging the reputation of the school. It’s time for top administration to have a much louder voice about the university’s standards.

In a story this week, sports reporter Pete Warner counted out the problem: 14 different athletes and three coaches since spring of last year. They were caught for theft, assault, OUI, underage drinking, receiving stolen property, hazing and burglary. The problems are too persistent over too many sports – football, men’s and women’s basketball, softball and baseball – to be considered just a few misguided souls who should have known better. If UMaine doesn’t see this as lowering the bar for behavior and a precursor to even more illegal incidents, it isn’t paying attention.

The fact that the overwhelming majority of student athletes aren’t involved in this kind of activity is beside the point – of course they aren’t, just as in the rest of society most people don’t commit crimes. The question is whether these athletes, collectively and as representatives of the university, are hurting the university’s reputation and damaging its future.

They are.

College sports receive money, support and status on campus not just because they include students who can shoot baskets or block linebackers. They are, for better or worse, the public face of a school. The athletes carry the honor of the school with them.

UMaine is in the middle of a major fund-raising drive and it is asking the public on next month’s ballot for more money through a bond request that will advance academic and research goals. Crudely put, the university can’t afford to have these athletes’ misbehavior stand in the way of the countless hours of hard and successful work of hundreds of people in the university community.

Athletic Director Blake James has been swift and sure in punishing athletes who break the rules. It’s clear he takes the infractions seriously. But the university as a whole hasn’t done enough to prevent the abuse of rules.

It needs to involve its president, Robert Kennedy, to reinforce the proper behavior to athletes, and it could benefit from bringing back successful athletes to talk about resisting the temptations of illegal activity and the long-term consequences for those who don’t.

In short, UMaine could take the depressing events of the last year or so and turn them into a chance to set new, more positive expectations. Certainly it can’t wait until the next incident to act.