By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.comThey're teachers. That's how coaches describe themselves. They take pride in helping the youth of the country, instructing them in how to become better players, become better citizens.
We're always hearing about the second part, how what a coach wants most is to prepare a kid for life after sports.
Do something wrong, you get punished. "Coach Suspends Halfback'' is the headline. Unless he's too valuable. Then, well, as we're often reminded, discipline will be private.
Or virtually non-existent.
Urban Meyer, the Florida coach, has his own ideas about justice. And lesson-teaching. They might not be similar to ours, but we don't have to think about national rankings and the BCS.
Our ideas have to do with the difference between right and wrong.
To Meyer that difference is only 30 minutes, half a football game.
One of Meyer's players, linebacker Brandon Spikes, was caught last Saturday on videotape intentionally sticking his fingers through the facemask and into the eyes of Georgia's Washaun Ealey.
A dirty move, a cheap shot. And an incident replayed again and again on the various networks.
It bothered us. It didn't bother Meyer, not to the point he would keep Spikes out of uniform for the next game, against Vanderbilt.
Meyer understood he was required to make a showing. So he announced Spikes would have to sit out the first half of the Vanderbilt game. Then Spikes will be permitted to go out and gouge someone else's eyes.
"I don't condone that,'' said Meyer. He seemingly was referring to what Spikes did, not about his own decision.
Out west in September an Oregon running back, LeGarrette Blount, sucker-punched a Boise State defensive end after the game, and Blount was suspended for the season. Or, barring a change in mind by Oregon coach Chip Kelly, to this point in the season.
But in the Sunshine State, the coach looks at violations a little more kindly. Or at the AP rankings a little more intently, not that Florida should need Spikes to beat Vanderbilt.
What it does need, however, is a sense of perspective and an understanding that there's no place for scofflaws in activities built on rules and fairness.
Reprimands have been popular of late in our sporting world. Chad Ochocinco, the Cincinnati Bengals receiver, was fined $10,000 for wearing a black chinstrap. That NFL certainly has its priorities.
Then a golfer nobody ever had heard of, Doug Barron, became the first PGA player to be suspended for violating the Tour's performance-enhancing drug policy. He's gone for a year.
Now, Brandon Spikes is going to be banished for an entire 30 minutes of a 60-minute college football game. That should make him contrite.
"I talked to him,'' Meyer said of Spikes. "That's not who he is. I love Brandon Spikes.''
And then my favorite phrase in failing to explain why an athlete gets away with almost anything, "We're going to move on.''
They're going to do anything to avoid the facts, the implications, the embarrassment. They're going to worry about putting the ball in the end zone instead of putting a finger in an opponent's cornea or retina.
Why does it always have to be like this? Why does the final score have to supersede common decency? Why can't a coach, any coach but particularly one as recognized as Meyer, step forward and act responsibly, since he wants his players to act responsibly?
We know Urban Meyer can recruit and motivate. We know he's won national championships. What's so hard about admitting that there was a problem and, as a leader of boys who would be men, that problem will be corrected?
Why is Brandon Spikes being given a figurative slap on the hand used to attack an opponent's eyes? Why is getting a man into the lineup more important than getting a message across?
We found out long ago sport does not build character. What we found out the past few days from Urban Meyer was that anything is permissible. Except defeat.
The sin, the author John Tunis said, is not failing to act like a gentleman, but in failing to win. Florida fans are thinking of another national title, not of reprimanding an act that in some places would be considered disgraceful. Get the kid out of the doghouse and back on the field. That's all they care about.
And so that's all that Urban Meyer cares about. You're surprised he didn't have Brandon Spikes write an apology on a chalkboard. That is if Spikes is apologetic.
Urban Meyer certainly doesn't appear to be.
As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was recently honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.- - - - - -
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