As everyone who reads this site is no doubt aware, the past few days have been interesting ones for the University of Kansas. There have been at least three separate incidents involving fighting between members of the football and basketball team. While fights among college students are nothing new, this situation made national headlines based on the fact that it involves student athletes from two nationally-ranked programs from the same school. And I, for one, am disappointed.
I went to college. I know that sometimes, especially when females are involved, men have their pride hurt. I know that sometimes engaging in fisticuffs seems like the best way to resolve differences. In hindsight, it rarely is, but in your teens and early twenties, attempting to bash someone’s skull sometimes seems like a valid way of getting your point across. It happens everyday, all around the world.
But these players live and work in close proximity to each other. Whether they like it or not, they’ll be seeing each other on an almost daily basis for the rest of the school year. They should have known better.
If what is alleged proves to be true, I feel like the players involved let us down. Tyshawn Taylor, Anthony Davis, Chris Harris, the Morris twins (Marcus & Markieff), and everyone else that has been alleged to be caught up in the altercation let the fans and supporters of the Kansas Jayhawks down. Whether they like it or not, these young men are role models for youth. In addition, by playing major college sports they are nationally prominent figures. As such, they acted incredibly irresponsibly by letting their private dislike and rivalry become public.
The leaders of our football and basketball teams also let us down. Where were Todd Reesing and Sherron Collins? Why didn’t Darrell Stuckey and Cole Aldrich take steps to alleviate this situation before it came to a head? As veteran leaders and captains of their respective teams, I find it hard to believe that this situation boiled over so rapidly that they didn’t see it coming. Part of being a leader is realizing that incidents like this negatively impact your team and thus doing everything you can to resolve them. If this is the manner in which they lead, then championships may be nothing more than wishful thinking for Jayhawk fans this season.
Along these same lines, I hold the coaching staffs responsible. I realize that Bill Self was on a recruiting trip, and Mark Mangino was probably wrapped up in game-planning for Southern Mississippi, but they should nonetheless share the blame. I have no doubt that they were aware of the first incident, which allegedly took place around 6:30 PM on Tuesday at the Burge Union. Following this altercation, it was the coaches’ responsibility to ensure there were no more. Rather than waiting for a fight to break out on campus, they should have brought the players involved together. From there they should have issued clear instructions to squash the problem, or at the very least, keep it private and away from prying eyes. And quite frankly, considering both Self’s and Mangino’s track record regarding misconduct, I’m surprised they didn’t. Instead, they let the situation continue to fester, leading to an injury to the starting two guard and a mountain of negative publicity.
Of course as bad as everyone involved handled things, perhaps the worst move committed by anyone involved was Taylor’s Facebook status updates, which only exacerbated the situation. He neglected to consider the prevalence with which these new forms of social media spread information and acted foolishly. While his updates may have been intended to protect his reputation among his online friends, what he succeeded in doing was throwing fuel on the fire and attracting further negative attention to this situation. You can almost be certain that future orientation programs at KU for incoming athletes will include sections outlining the affects of Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media, and how they can negatively impact a program.
I’m somewhat reassured following Lew Perkin’s statement and the meeting between the teams, but from here on out, this should be a zero-tolerance situation. As much as I would hate to lose Briscoe or Taylor from a fan’s perspective, this situation cannot continue. If it happens again, for the good of the university, someone has to go.
