We have seen it over and over again. Schools and the communities where they are located actively conspire to protect football players from legal investigation and prosecution. We saw it at Penn State. We saw it at Stubenville High School. We have seen it at Florida State. The New York Times has put together a very revealing investigatory report on the situation at FSU.
At Florida State, Football Clouds Justice
Now, an examination by The New York Times of police and court records, along with interviews with crime witnesses, has found that, far from an aberration, the treatment of the Winston complaint was in keeping with the way the police on numerous occasions have soft-pedaled allegations of wrongdoing by Seminoles football players. From criminal mischief and motor-vehicle theft to domestic violence, arrests have been avoided, investigations have stalled and players have escaped serious consequences.
In a community whose self-image and economic well-being are so tightly bound to the fortunes of the nation’s top-ranked college football team, law enforcement officers are finely attuned to a suspect’s football connections. Those ties are cited repeatedly in police reports examined by The Times. What’s more, dozens of officers work second jobs directing traffic and providing security at home football games, and many express their devotion to the Seminoles on social media.
Certainly, Florida State football players have not always sidestepped prosecution. Over the last three years, at least nine players have been arrested on charges ranging from sexual assault to being an accessory to a fatal shooting.
But on other occasions, despite strong evidence, investigations have been delayed and sometimes derailed.
The article explores several cases in which the efforts of police to avoid investigating incidents which involved FSU players appear to be decidedly blatant. The most notorious of these was the rape allegation against star player Jameis Winston. That case demonstrates alarming indications that the University actively attempted to protect Winston from prosecution.
Football is of course not about teaching young men the value of sportsmanship and clean living. It is about money and power. It represents a huge industry. At the "amateur" level it brings huge revenue to the schools that produce winning teams. At the professional level it puts money into the pockets of wealthy team owners. When looked at from this perspective, the players are really disposable commodities. Injuries are common and may produce various forms of lasting disabilities. The American public's fascination with watching the physical assault is directly descended from the spectacle in Roman coliseums with the gladiators slaughtering each other. Gridiron gladiators has long been a staple of sports columns.
While their football careers last, star players receive celebrity treatment. The NFL is coming under increasing pressure to deal with some of the more flagrant instances of off the field violence by some of its players. Rape investigations have been the main focus of incidents involving college players, but as this NYT report makes clear, the problem is broader than that. It is a culture that says football players should be allowed to do pretty much what they want to do as long as they win the game.
Since many of the star players are black, it is ironic that in a society where young black men are recurring targets of police violence, those few who manage to hit the big time in football become the targets of police protection. It is indeed a strange world that we live in.