Today's student Printz carried the McCaleb arrest on the front page.  The reporting seemed tough, not waivering from hard questions of Holloway and the other campus leaders involved.  Their answers were weak.

The Editorial pages are full of columns related to this and the team's post-Katrina trip to Memphis that cost $70,000+.

Rules For A Few wrote:

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In the case of athletics, the athletes are held to different and lower standards than the regular student body. If a student not on a football team had been on frat row and was arrested for the same charges as this player, the student would have been crucified by the campus cops, Hollaway, etc. This guy is portrayed as a good guy who made a dumb mistake. Implications are he should be forgiven. This would not have happened to a regular student. That student would have been portrayed as a criminal. This athlete should have been suspended from the rest of the season.

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Had this been regular student, there would be no write up in the student printz, Clarion Ledger, Hattiesburg American, etc., and they certainly wouldn't be message board fodder.  Arrests happen regularly on campus.  The fortunate ones are those that avoid the scrutiny of the media and message board critics.  In this manner, the double standard carries a more heavy burden for those student athletes. 

The fact is, only a few know what happened, and I have not heard any of them speak.  As far as doling out punishment, I'd leave that to those more qualified than I (i.e., campus police, the coach, the court system). 

 

Invictus wrote:

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I respectfully disagree. Had a student not on the football team been arrested on the same charges as the player, it wouldn't have been above-the-fold on the front page of the sports section of the Hattiesburg American. In fact, as a "domestic" it might not have even been listed in the police report in the paper, buried somewhere inside section A .

Had the incident involved a full-scholarship honors student having a fight with his girlfriend, it would have not been "newsworthy." So here's the question: If a football player gets busted, it is somehow worse than if some other scholarship student commits the same offense? Do we bash the director of the honors program for not cutting off the student's financial aid in the latter case? Hell, do we even know if an honors student gets busted?

Yes, it sounds like a double standard to me but not in the direction you want it to go.

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I believe that Invictus has gotten his wires crossed in his final statement. The original poster was referring to a double standard among football players, not between athletes and non-athletes. There does seem to be a "star bias" when Bower deals with his impact players as opposed to reserves. Suspensions are lifted for stars, while reserves must serve their time. There is "double secret" probation for a starter (a male) who has apparently battered (or at least assaulted) a female student. Is this behavior OK? Does Bower condone (at least) reckless behavior or (at worst) criminal behavior?

There was a time when Jeff Bower had a "clean as a whistle" reputation. His program was clean (i.e., no paid players), his players were good students, and his team (both players and coaches) were good citizens. Those days are apparently gone. Stars at USM are an elevated class who do not have to abide by the same rules that their less-talented teammates must follow. Not only is there a major difference between regular student and student-athlete or student-athlete and football player, there is now an apparent caste system within the football team, which begs the questions: Has it always been this way at USM? Was Bower just a little more slick? Was the media just a little less investigative? Were there just a few less mouths to keep shut? Was there more money to help shut those mouths? Is Bower's whole reputation a sham built on Florida swampland?

Many of you raise valid concerns.  I know that the BSU has written a letter to athletic officials just this week offering to assist in an investigative audit of Bower's discipline decisions in the past few years.  That investigation will begin within the next month.

friends,

why does anyone really believe that SFT allows JB the freedom of individual decision? Attacking Jeff is futile. All major decisions concerned with all aspects of USM remain with Shelboo.

Nix my last post. Except for the part about Emma. I stand corrected.

Maybe everyone should wait before condemning Dr. Thames for something he's likely not involved with (discipline [or not] decisions in football).  JB was an assistant coach at Southern Methodist in 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, and 1986.  He may know a trick or two himself.

 

Rod_Sterling wrote:

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Invictus wrote: The dude in the building with the funny round top calls the shots. Not being an English scholar, does "funny round top" refer to "dude" or "building"?

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In this case "funny round top" no doubt is a reference to both the dude and the building.

Invictus wrote:

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And I stick to my contention that between group variance exceeds within group variance. There are enough statisticians here to know what that means.

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Invictus-you are usually right on in your observations, but this one is a bit confusing (unless it is a subtle point about this being an extraordinarily rare situation of human behavior). In most cases of group comparisons (for example, gender or race differences on dependent measures such as mathematics abilities, intelligence, or antisocial behavior), within-subjects variability far exceeds mean group differences. In fact, I can't think of any frequently studied behavior in which between group mean difference exceeds the dispersion of scores within groups. It is a statistical possibility, of course, especially in non-overlapping distributions or non-normal distributions, but probably uncommon in human behavior.

For those of you who play offensive line out there, please ignore this post (only kidding).

 

Invictus wrote:

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As has been pointed out on this thread, I had my wires crossed. Football players are, as we all know, invariably dumb, insensitive, violent clods & honors students always abide by the highest standards of decency & honor. And an honors student is just as likely to be on the front page of section B of the American as a linebacker. But the whole thread originated because somebody believes that Bower treats his "star" players differently from the less talented members of the team & I misread that. So just forget it. There's no difference at all in the way society treats athletes & the way it treats other students. None at all. No statistically significant difference. Just like the NCAA says.

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Now, now, don't be so sensitive. My post had nothing serious to say about social attitudes and perceptions of athletes. Just that you had your stats backwards.

But now that you mention it, there are confounding variables to consider. It is not athletic status that leads to increased scrutiny, but celebrity status in general--whether you are an athlete, actor, politician, or Nobel Prize awardee. With great rewards come the possibility of a great fall from grace. If the SGA president, Miss Mississippi, or class valedictoran got caught with their pants down (okay, I'll fess up, one WOULD get more of my attention), you can bet that would be a major press topic.

Does society treat athletes different? Of course. Just as we treat CEOs, famous actors, Oprah, rich computer geeks, and members of Congress differently.

Part of you post has to do with stereotyping (an academic interest of mine). Again, I argue that the within subjects variance in both honors students and athletes is greater than between groups. I have had athletes in class who are among the best and brightest at USM (one, in fact, was a lineman), as well as honors students who turned out to have significant character flaws (such as drug addiction and dishonesty). The average intelligence of the typical USM athlete is probably about the same as the typical USM undergrad. Stereotyping is of interest to academics, in part, because it is so robust in the absence of significant mean group differences.    

Stats again wrote:

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Now, now, don't be so sensitive. My post had nothing serious to say about social attitudes and perceptions of athletes. Just that you had your stats backwards.

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[WARNING: OBTUSE HUMOR ALERT!]

LOL! Or maybe you're interpreting my posts through your own set of "conceptual goggles"

Ho: There is no significant difference between star athletes, other athletes & scholarship honors students with respect to likelihood that their names will appear in an "above-the-fold" article in the Hattiesburg American when members of each of the three groups commit similar offenses.

I believe my contention that between-groups variability will exceed with-group variability & that the above-stated null will be rejected is pretty close to an established fact. In fact, I'll offer that when a non-athlete gets above-the-fold coverage for fighting with his girlfriend, it's so unusual that we can pitch it out as an "outlier." Call that my a priori bias (and use it accordingly to discredit my "research"), or rephrase it as a "directional research hypothesis" (allowing me to double the chances of a significant p-value) depending on whether you're in the natural sciences or the social sciences.

If a newspaper deems a "domestic disturbance" to be worthy of banner headline coverage, then it should be running all domestic disturbances that way. (That would be ludicrous, wouldn't it?) Either that or the paper is discriminating based on some presumed "celebrity" status. Personally, I don't care if it's Tom Cruise, the kicker for a mid-major football team at a smallish regional university, or the kid that lives in the third room on the left side of the second floor in the dorm. (And if you really think that it's "newsworthy" when some "celebrity" gets involved in a "domestic disturbance," it's probably time for you to drop your subscription to People magazine!)

[WARNING: OBLIGATORY CONSPIRACY THEORY AHEAD!]

What I think is going on is that the HA is complicit in an attempt to discredit Jeff Bower. In order for Shelboo to bring in a "quality football coach" (with, say, the track record & credentials of USM's new "quality basketball coach"), he's going to have to chip away at the public's positive perception of Bower. And that is precisely what I believe is going on.

And yes, there's a statistically significant likelihood that I'm a conspiracy theorist

I agree with what you're saying "SA" ... When we look at the full spectrum of behavior, academic performance, etc., athletes are virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the student body. They just get a lot more attention when they do well or do poorly. And I often wonder if that's really fair to a kid who is, ultimately, just an 18-22 year old.

Don't you think that since Thames was enthroned by the "athletic supporters" (primarily football), the stakes are higher for the coaches.  Bower might be doing things that he otherwise wouldn't have done when serving a president like Fleming or Lucas or an athletic director like Ricky?   That is no excuse, but he may be a reason.

Invictus wrote:

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What I think is going on is that the HA is complicit in an attempt to discredit Jeff Bower. In order for Shelboo to bring in a "quality football coach" (with, say, the track record & credentials of USM's new "quality basketball coach"), he's going to have to chip away at the public's positive perception of Bower. And that is precisely what I believe is going on. And yes, there's a statistically significant likelihood that I'm a conspiracy theorist  

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I finally see (Imma dense). You posit that the HA and SFT want JB out, and that is the reason for the recent odd spat of newsprint. Wouldn't surprise me. But this is USM. You need to understand that Jeff is merely another employee working for The Boss Man (we have "bosses" at USM, not "supervisors").

The stat I am most concerned with is the Monday morning top 25 national rankings. We rarely seem to be there. Do I blame JB? Well, given that the crew that got raises this week are the ones who kicked the stool out from under our feet as an academic institution, it's hard to say his overall performance is any worse that SFT's.  

Anyone watching today's games notice how many of the university spots (usually narrated by their pres) focuses on faculty achievement, student sucess, and even on the arts?