Sports Illustrated Cover: College Football & Crime

[J-Mike88]

Very interesting, and alarming, documentary between CBS & Sports Illustrated hits the newsstands today. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...ime/index.html

Discuss.
It's not as bad as I thought it was to be honest.



Story Highlights

• A six-month SI/CBS News investigation ran criminal background checks on Top 25
  
• Only two of Top 25 schools did background checks; none checked juvenile records

Pittsburgh's Jabaal Sheard allegedly threw a man through a glass door in a fight last September and later pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.

This makes him not a future Packers draft pick FYI.

[phlysac]

Originally Posted by J-Mike88

Pittsburgh's Jabaal Sheard allegedly threw a man through a glass door in a fight last September and later pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.

This makes him not a future Packers draft pick FYI.

I'm not defending Pitt because this is just ridiculous. Thankfully, nearly all of the players are gone and the coach that brought them to the team. However, when mentioning Sheard's arrest it would only be fair to mention that he risked his life to save an elderly woman from a burning building as well. He's not a bad guy.

[Rabscuttle]

It's a tough call. Do you close the door on kids who have a shot of getting out of a bad situation by placing them in an institution on higher learning where they will have a much better chance of going on to be useful members of society? If the football programs/schools are doing their jobs, these kids should be getting an education if they are remaining academically eligible.

How many other students not involved in the NCAA committed crimes as minors and are allowed on campus? How many others have records as adults and are allowed to attend school or are they?

[Dagagad]

Juvenile records are generally sealed so I doubt schools could see them if they wanted to. Also, this article made me really angry. Where is the context? What's the arrest/conviction rate for students/young male students/young males in general? Unless those figures are presented, then the figures in the article are irrelevant.

[phlysac]

Agree. It also doesn't discuss severity of charges and whether or not these players were ever even convicted.