Cheap Shot From The (Com)Post Part II

Memo to Mike Wise: If you don't know what you're talking about, then don't talk about it.

Unlike the first (Com)Post cheap shot this isn't meant to be humorous or tongue-in-cheek.

But the problem with Wise's moral preening is that Wise admits, he doesn't have all the facts:

I don't know what role Marcus Wimbush had, if any, in the fight.

His colleague goes on to say:

Friedgen said. "He was punished for violating team rules. Other than that you've got to let the judicial system square it away."...several players faced disciplinary action, including game suspensions and community service, neither Friedgen nor the university has publicly named the players involved, or stated the number of players involved in the brawl.

So does Mike Wise not even read the work of his colleagues or check in with them? Fridge said that Marcus Wimbush was punished for what he did and being 22 years old at the time of the incident, he was not breaking any laws for being in an establishment that sells alcohol at 1 am.

Is Mike Wise also unaware of the MAJOR difference between charges filed by a citizen and charges filed by a police officer? If UMD were willing to suspend Wimbush over simply being charged with a misdemeanor, how long do you think it would take for other schools to target star UMD athletes with trumped up misdemeanors?

I'm not saying that the women who pressed charges are lying or that they have an axe to grind against the University. But considering how big college athletics has become and the mindset of college students these days, I wouldn't put anything past them or some of the more rabid boosters either.

But I guess Wise wants Fridge to "make an example out of the guy." Publicly embarrassing your players doesn't endear you to recruits. College athletes are already held to a higher standard than their peers. How many girls get groped in a college bar and nothing is ever written about it in major newspapers? How many bar fights break out and only blurb at best gets run in the paper? How much underage drinking will there be tonight on every college campus?

Yet when regular students do this, nobody cares. When the college's athletes do it. It is a major story and punishment is demanded. Athletes shouldn't be given a free pass to rein death and destruction but they shouldn't be held to an obscenely high standard either.