Aug 08
USC trustee: Campus cops targeted athletes
One of the longest-serving and most influential members of USC’s board of trustees believes Gamecocks athletes have been targeted by the university’s police force.
Eddie Floyd, who has served on the board since 1982, said several months ago he was told that some campus police officers were overzealous in their investigations and arrests of athletes.
“I feel they have overstepped in some areas. After talking to some of the people, this is how I feel. And I always say what I feel, good or bad.”
Floyd said he met with university officials this summer to discuss the matter.
“My feeling is that (targeting athletes) has happened. I’m sure the administration may have a different opinion, but certainly that’s what I think.”
Floyd said he had no evidence police singled out athletes, but believes it has gone on based on his “gut feeling” following discussions with people he respects.
Is he right?
Hell yeah, he’s right. On USC’s campus, we have a small group of police officers who bring in more football players than rapists. I don’t know if anyone knows this, but USCs Athletic Department has slowing been moving players to off campus ‘housing’ to decrease these incidents. It’s funny, because the cops charged with policing off-campus housing haven’t arrested a single player, yet. But our local campus police can’t seem to go a week without arresting a QB.
Take Stephen Garcia for instance. The entire country thinks Spurrier is soft because he let Garcia back on the team. But the fact is that Stephen was caught drinking outside of his own dorm room. Truth: he shouldn’t have been drinking as he’s only 19. But if you drove past East Quadrangle at any point of the day, you’ll see people outside drinking.
You won’t see any cops, even though the police station is across the street, 100 yards away.
The fact that our football players even see jail cells for the things they’re getting busted for speaks volumes about our Football Culture. We here in Columbia don’t have an ‘US against the World‘ attitude. So some asshole cop buys a player a drink and then busts the same player for underage drinking five minutes later. Then we feed that kid to the media wolves. This is fucking college - I majored in underage drinking. I nearly killed myself many times with alcohol. On the few occasions that a pole officer intervened, he poured my shit out and sent me home. Is making an example of your starting QB worth all the negative publicity? What happens when advertisers see that we don’t love our team like Ohio State loves their team?
August 8th, 2008 at 8:01 am
I can only speak to the places I’ve lived, but they would almost have to be targeted to have so many arrests of college athletes. There are some places where it works completely the opposite (see Texas High School football), and athletes are given a free pass for pretty much anything.
On the other hand…if athletes know this, why don’t they at least take a few steps to avoid trouble? Is it so much to ask an athlete to quit using drugs for a few months? Or at least be somewhat discrete about it? If football is your ticket to college, can’t you get drunk somewhere within walking distance of your dorm or apartment?
True what you said about Stephen Garcia though. He was doing what I suggested. Worst case, he’s being a threat to himself. If we start arresting people for that, we sure are going to have some crowded prisons.
August 8th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
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August 9th, 2008 at 11:21 am
There is no doubt that there are some Barney Fifes in Columbia who get off on fucking with the athletes. But Floyd the trustee sounds like a whiny bitch, especially when he says he doesn’t have any real proof. He should be paying off cops instead of whining in the press about them.