Being a college athlete is usually a very beneficial thing. Nine times out of ten, you are not paying the full tuition, if any, to attend the school. You generally are allowed to take easier classes and, most of the time, the instructors are easier on you.
By NCAA law, they are required to be lenient and work with athletes as they miss class a lot more often than regular students.
Sometimes, college athletes even get out of trouble with the law and this ESPN report shows just that.
The report states that ESPN “selected 10 schools in various conferences and geographies, leaning toward colleges in quintessential college towns and in states that had public records laws that seemed favorable to accessing police and court records” to observe how the student-athletes are treated in legal situations.
Among the ten schools were two of the three power conference schools within the state of Florida: Florida State and the University of Florida.
The report and its author, Paula Lavigne, states that Florida State seventy percent of college athletes avoid prosecution while only fifty percent of regular, male FSU students avoid such. Florida’s ratio is similar, but there is a larger gap.
Fifty-six percent of the athletes avoid prosecution, but only twenty-eight percent gets that treatment.
FSU athletes avoiding prosecution 70%; college guys, 50%. For Florida it was 56% athletes, 28% regular Joes. Why? http://t.co/MG4u0aUHmC
— Paula Lavigne (@pinepaula) June 14, 2015
The Outside the Lines report particularly names former Florida running back Chris Rainey first and foremost and it doesn’t do him any justice. He was named a suspect in five separate crimes while at Florida, but was charged only once. The report also touches on Florida State athletic director Monk Bonasorte, who was arrested for cocaine distribution and served six months in jail, after his time as a football player at FSU.
“He is kind of the fixer for football,” an unnamed former staff member said about Bonasorte. “He knows where the skeletons are buried, but he also helps keep those football players, not out of trouble, but out of paying for the trouble they’ve gotten into.”
The other eight schools named in the report were: Auburn, Michigan State, Missouri, Notre Dame, Oklahoma State, Oregon State, Texas A&M and Wisconsin.
Missouri has seen its fair share of troublesome athletes. Dorial Green-Beckham found himself in hot water while at Missouri after he was suspended three separate times and eventually dismissed from the university. The most notable incident was where Green-Beckham was initially charged with first degree burglary and that he pushed a woman down a flight of stairs.
The woman reportedly declined to press charges and forced police to drop the case.
Why have college athletes been treated so differently? Is it because they are looked up to as gods among the student body? As a college student myself, they are no different from me and I don’t put them upon a pedestal. So why does anyone else, especially the police?
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*Featured Photo (above) credit to USA TODAY Sports
