tnt said:PlayerRep said:tnt said:I am not saying they are handling all of them in the old school way, or even inappropriately. (i don't know) I am saying that the way they have been handled leaves a lot of room for question. There will NEVER be time in any university that there will not be accusations of special treatment, cover-up etc regarding athletes. Small errors in sum have lead to a big problem.
Can you be more specific? What "leaves room for question"? It's been previously discussed that perhaps the taser guys should have be held out more than at quarter at the time, even though there was internal discipline, the possibility of the matter being re-evaluated when the facts/outcome were known, and the the matter ended with a nolo plea to disorderly conduct. Okay, what else?
What specific accusations of "special treatment" or "cover-up"? I would argue that athletes are now getting the reverse of special treatment.
The handling of the "rapes" is obviously a question. The university went so far as to higher independent investigation the results of which were either supposed to clear the University or give guidance for future incidents but instead blew up. The accusations of special treatment have been present on every campus including this one since nearly the beginning of time. I said Accusations not occurrences. This one started a while back but I would point at Hauck's f bomb reply to a specific question of special treatment by the Kaiman as the beginning of the latest go round. It doesn't take much to get myth really cooking. Keep in mind there are 300 athletes being served by millions of dollars of facilities, special tutors, rearraged test scheduled deadlines etc for travel, adored by the public, etc and 12,000 more students aren't. Most of these kids can't even get a ticket to a game if they were interested. maybe its envy maybe its not. but you can't tell me the U of M is the only school where there might be a bit of envy or jealousy between students and athletes deserved or not)
The questions of "special" treatment were poorly enough answered we have firing news papers article (world wide) CNN satellite trucks around Town and a Federal Investigation. I'm not the one you should be asking what brought this on. Suffice it to say lack of understanding the significance of TODAY'S transparency had SOMETHING to do with it.
As for the rape allegations against athletes, I'm not sure how the university could have handled them much better or differently. It looks to me that none of the accusations are going to go anywhere (and/or didn't occur), other than the one for which there was a charge. There can't be any complaint about the handling of that one. He was off the team and out of school almost immediately, after the matter became known. Respected independent investigator appointed.
Given the amount of revenue and positive attention athletes bring to the schools, and the amount of effort they put into their sports, those relatively minor accomodations don't look like much to me.