Bay Area Cat said:The "higher standard" is in place for one simple reason -- because athletics is a marketing arm of the university, and whatever makes athletics look bad also has the potential to damage the reputation/business of the entire university.
A kid with an academic scholarship isn't someone that is generally used by the school to market itself within the state or around the country, so their actions just aren't generally followed nearly as close. But athletes are put out there as the face of the university, and are therefore treated differently.
So schools apply a higher standard to the athletes because it is trying to protect its brand.
Is that fair to the student-athletes? Not really. But that's the reality. If those standards weren't in place, and athletics was no longer useful to the school as a marketing arm, athletics wouldn't exist in the form they do today, so I guess the higher standard is just part of the grander bargrain that allows intercollegiate athletics to exist in the first place.
That's it right there. Remember that choosing to play football is a choice, if you don't want the exposure and visibility, don't play.