Missoula lawyer David Paoli is a friend of mine. So I’m certain he won’t be offended by my opinion of what he characterized as “advice” to Pat Williams printed as a column in Sunday’s (March 17) Missoulian.
Let me preface my remarks by pointing out that I’ve been a college football fan all of my life. Football paid for my college education. And, I’ve been a season-ticket holder to Grizzlies football for many years.
Still, I’ve been mystified by the reaction of many Grizzlies football fans to Williams’ remarks describing too many of the team’s players as “thugs” and his commitment as a regent to end the “thuggery.”
Paoli lambasted Williams’ remarks as “ignorant,” “abusive of his position as a regent” and unfair to Paoli’s client. He threw in a little race-baiting for good measure, even though the term used by Williams is racially neutral and the offenders he referred to were both black and white.
It seems to me, on the other hand, that anyone who doesn’t recognize the problems Williams described wouldn’t be fit to serve as a regent and that the real “ignorance” is demonstrated by attacking the messenger for his unpleasant message.
It might be helpful to review the conduct over the past five years that he accurately characterized as “thuggery.”
It includes a fatal shooting by Jimmy Wilson and his teammate Qwenton Freeman’s refusal to participate in the investigation, even though he witnessed it, following which Wilson was found not guilty and they were welcomed back to the team; Freeman’s numerous convictions for acts of violence and ultimate dismissal from the team; Freeman’s armed burglary with the assistance of several other players; the brutal assaults on another student on campus by two other players; Jermaine Johnson’s and Andrew Swink’s violent assault on another student; Johnson’s and Gerald Kemp’s obstruction of a peace officer; Beau Donaldson’s rape of a female companion; several players’ alleged involvement in a gang rape; the University of Montana president’s admission, following an independent investigation, that a number of players had been involved in sexual assaults; and the recent brutal beating and robbery of a convenience store clerk by a former player with a history of other violent and illegal conduct. Throw in several other violent assaults on women by some of these same players.
During the same period of time, seven players have been arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs – a couple of them repeat offenders.
As a result of this history, the university is being investigated by the NCAA, the Justice Department, and the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.
If people who kill others, rape others, beat others, and burglarize and rob others aren’t thugs, then what are they? And, how much thuggery does it take before a member of the Board of Regents is free to say we need to do something about it?
While it is true that Paoli’s client was recently acquitted of the charges against him, Paoli takes himself and the acquittal too seriously when he infers that the acquittal of one player vindicates the entire program, or makes Williams’ comments any less true. And the fact that one athlete, or others like him, has good grades and lives with his mother and her cat, doesn’t excuse this pattern of recruitment.
As alarming as this five-year pattern of conduct should be, the greater long-term problem will come from the culture of entitlement that causes players here, and elsewhere, to think they are unaccountable for their conduct because of their athletic ability and the knee-jerk reaction of program supporters, including Paoli, to anyone who questions where and how things might have gone wrong.
There’s no one in the state more qualified to serve on the Board of Regents than Pat Williams. He has spent a lifetime in service to public education and was defending the Constitution, including the rights of the accused, at some political cost, long before most of his detractors took any interest in the criminal justice system. To think his appointment could be derailed over comments that were both honest and long overdue, though, would suggest one miscalculation on Pat Williams’ part – his belief that most Montanans appreciate “straight talk.”
Terry N. Trieweiler is a retired Montana Supreme Court justice and writes from Whitefish.
