10/30/2014: About $800 per officer per game. Does this encourage them to go easy on lawbreaking Ducks, as apparently happened in Tallahassee with FSU? John Canzano raises the question in the Oregonian, here:
I write this knowing that three UO men’s basketball players faced a sexual assault investigation that got tangled and tricky last spring. They were not charged, but were eventually dismissed by the university. I write this knowing that police work can be thankless, and that officers often seek out overtime to pad their incomes and pay their mortgages. But I also write this hoping that maybe some deep discussion will cause the universities and police departments to work closely together to try and make sure everyone has clean hands.
The difficulty reporters have about getting info on police reports involving UO athletes is pretty obvious, the rape allegations and the shoplifting arrests being the most recent examples – at least the most recent that reporters have managed to find out about.
10/10/2014: “At Florida State, Football Clouds Justice”. And at UO?
The NYT leads with a long investigative piece documenting the Jameis Wilson rape allegations and many other scandals. How do athletic departments get away with this sort of thing? Among the explanations:
A successful football program is also good for Tallahassee police officers. They earn an extra $40 to $45 an hour, at university expense, providing traffic control on game days, according to the department. Last season, officers were paid a total of $112,000, according to the university.
How different is Eugene? Austin Meek reports in the RG today that Dana Altman is so worried about the rape allegations and other legal troubles of those “student-athletes” that he has brought in to help him keep his $1.8M job, that he’s now assigning grad students to live with them, in the apartment complex that Duck booster Pat Kilkenny built right next the to basketball arena:
“Those have been our violations with the law. And then we had young men that had a real bad night.”
That one bad night, which involved the three players engaging in multiple sexual encounters with a female accuser, has resulted in far-reaching consequences.
To deter future incidents, Altman said he has changed living arrangements for his team, requiring players to live with graduate assistants in the same apartment complex across from Matthew Knight Arena.
“It gives us an opportunity to have some different curfews before games, after games, with an easier ability for our GAs to do some checking to make sure our players are where they’re supposed to be on time,” Altman said.
Altman also examined his recruiting process, both as it pertained to players with past disciplinary issues and those with questionable academic records.
*Altman* has “examined his recruiting process”? Shouldn’t someone with less to lose from a more rigorous process be in charge of Mr. Altman?
And when the grad students go on strike, watch out Eugene!
It’d be fascinating to find out if local police are making the same profit off of Duck games as Tallahassee police.