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The results of a six-month investigation by Sports Illustrated and CBS into the criminal backgrounds of college football players on Top 25 teams were sobering to say the least.

What that probe revealed was that 8.1 percent of the scholarship players on teams ranked in Sports Illustrated's preseason Top 25 had criminal records and that only two of the schools did background checks, while none of the schools checked juvenile records.

According to the report, Arkansas was the most egregious offender among SEC teams ranked in the Top 25 with 18 players possessing criminal records. The Hogs were tied for second overall on the dubious list with Iowa, who also had 18 players charged. At the top of the list was Pittsburgh with 22 players possessing criminal records.

Florida had seven players with criminal records, Alabama five, and LSU three.
The joint investigation by Sports Illustrated and CBS involved criminal background checks on every player -- 2,837 in all -- on the preseason rosters of the Top 25 teams. Players' names, dates of birth and other vital information were checked at 31 courthouses and through 25 law enforcement agencies in 17 states. Players were also checked through one or more online databases that track criminal records. In all, 7,030 individual record checks were performed.

http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/print?id=39890

less than 10% had criminal records and counted being "charged" as having a criminal record (so even that 8% they mention is skewed up if they actually ran vs. convictions).

now, there are 2 valid portions of this article:

1. apparently, most schools don't even run background checks. surprising given how important these athletes are to their schools.

2. some schools have close to 25% of their team with criminal records. now, if these are serious offenses and/or are all convictions, then I could see some serious issues with building a team in that manner.

22 on a single football team seems really high.. but 5, 6, 7? How many on a football team are they considering? If they consider the 90 or so that go to practice, then I doubt half a dozen is a lot. I bet if you took a random sampling of 90 male college students you would probably find half a dozen with a DUI or a drunk in public or vandalism or something like that... and it doesn't make any reference to how serious the charges/convictions were...

Funny, it is made a major point that most schools do not run background checks. If they did, there wouldn't be any football players.

No wonderment there.

ha. I would like to know what the rates are as a percentage of students athletes who have been arrested / convicted of a crime and then the percentage of individuals in the workplace as a percentage of the entire workplace found guilty of the same crimes.

While a few schools in this model seems to break the average so to speak ... I bet that many colleges are actually WAY better percentage wise. I would even say compare the same age groups. I bet that the average NCAA team (even stay in D1 so we don't skew the numbers with D3 kids who are only there for school and not on scholarship) might have a few kids with troubled pasts ... but in NO way would it look as bad as the average demographics of 17/18 to 21/22 year old men in terms of crime ...

It's just that on an 80 man roster, it's way easier to talk about the 3 or 4 knuckleheads (or flat out idiots) who screwed up this past weekend out at a party then it is to talk about the guy who is an academic all american while being his school's SAAC representative, and a member of the student council, and because he was redshirted he will have a double major when he graduates...

it's the *dang* media who needs to sell adspace so they would rather report on the troublemakers then the role models.

the cincinnati bengals don't see what the big deal is here.

But how many of those people get a free education (valued ~$100,000 in some cases) in spite of a criminal record?

"Those people have skills that are not marketable in the real world."

Good point. But you know it's not free. if we assume that it's 100k then you're saying it's about 25k per year on average (assuming 4 years of education).

That's on average $480.00 per week. This is the point where it becomes tricky because we know the ncaa only allows 20 or so hours, but when you include the lifting, film sesssions, player meetings, practices ... things that you don't really know how much time a player is putting in. You could say that they are putting in 20 hours, but maybe they are putting in 40 hours? That also doesn't include other things that are mandatory such as study tables, academic meetings, and other items that while not directly related to football are still mandatory to maintain a scholarship (as well as grades!!)

So it seems just by simple estimates above you could say that they could make anywhere between 12 and 24 per hour. Not necessarily a bad thing, but some guys in strong unions make more than that (or at least that) and some have criminal records.

So far this year through August, 125 college and professional football and basketball players have been arrested on serious charges. By that I mean felonies or misdemeanors involving violence, weapons or substance abuse. That's pretty astounding. At this rate, the number will be up around 200 by year's end.

I started looking into this about a month ago, after seeing what seemed like daily stories about athletes in trouble with the law. With the help of my research assistant, Jeff Gasser, I looked up publicly reported arrests involving pro and college athletes between January 1, 2010 and August 31, 2010. I didn't count about 40 arrests I found involving football and basketball players charged with minor offenses. And I only found a handful of serious charges involving players from other sports such as baseball, hockey and boxing.

I've been investigating and writing about athletes and crime for more than 15 years. During that time I've written four books on the subject and looked at more than 1,000 incidents involving college and professional athletes. So it takes a lot to raise my eyebrows. To some degree, I think that's true of most sports fans. We've gotten pretty accustomed to reports of athletes getting in trouble with the law. But 125 cases involving basketball and football players in an eight-month span? That's more than one every other day. Seems to me like the problem is getting worse.

Seventy of the 125 players arrested so far this year play college football. What's interesting is the way these cases are handled by the coaches.

Oregon star running back LaMichael James wasn't in the lineup for the Ducks' season-opening 72-0 win over New Mexico. Last season James set a Pac-10-record by rushing for 1,546 yards as a freshman. But during this offseason James was charged with menacing, strangulation and assault after an altercation with his former girlfriend. In March he pled guilty to a single misdemeanor harassment charge and was sentenced to 10 days in jail, but didn't serve any time. Instead, James was permitted to wear an electronic surveillance device. Oregon coach Chip Kelly suspended James for one game.

Compare James's situation to that of Oregon State redshirt lineman Tyler Thomas. On Aug. 22 police in Corvallis, Ore., say they found Thomas naked and intoxicated in a stranger's home. When ordered down on the ground, Thomas reportedly went into a three-point stance and lunged at the officers, who fired stun guns to subdue him. Thomas was charged with criminal trespass, criminal mischief and resisting arrest. Although he has yet to be convicted of anything, he was dismissed from the team following his arrest.

So why did Thomas get the boot for an alcohol-induced arrest while James got a slap on the wrist for pleading guilty to harassing a woman? Look no further than the Facebook page "LaMichael James for Heisman." Clearly, better athletes get better outcomes, both in the criminal justice system and on college campuses.

Some other things jumped out at me when I reviewed the 125 cases. One is the seriousness and frequency of the cases involving student-athletes. For instance, during the last week of July alone, 10 college football and basketball players were implicated in incidents that involved serious threats to public safety. Here's a sampling:

• On July 31, police in Stillwater, Okla., responded to a bar fight, where they found former Oklahoma State lineman Stephen Denning bleeding profusely. His left orbital socket had been fractured when Oklahoma State lineman Anton Blatnik, according to witnesses, allegedly struck Denning in the face with a beer bottle. Despite his injuries, Denning tried to force his way through several officers to continue the fight with Blatnik. Officers deployed an Electronic Control Device to subdue Denning, who was charged with misdemeanor assault. Blatnick pled guilty to a misdemeanor and received probation and community service.

• On the same day in Huntington, WVa., a Papa John's pizza deliveryman was assaulted and robbed on the Marshall University campus. Marshall defensive tackle Michael Fleurizard was charged with felony robbery for allegedly throwing the deliveryman to the ground and kicking him in the face before holding the victim down while two other men robbed him of $290 in cash. Fleurizard was dismissed from the team.

• A few days earlier in Philadelphia, two Drexel University basketball players were charged with armed robbery. Jamie Harris, the team's starting point guard and leading scorer, and Kevin Phillip, a backup forward, surrendered to authorities a day after allegedly entering a woman's apartment and pointing handguns while searching for money. The charges are pending and Harris' lawyer says his client has been falsely accused.

A few cases like this a year is one thing, but 10 in one week is out of control.

It's particularly troubling to see more and more college athletes carrying guns. Twelve of the 16 weapons-related arrests I looked at involved student-athletes, such as Kansas football players Jamal Greene and Vernon Brooks, both of whom were charged with attempted aggravated robbery. Police say the two players entered a Lawrence apartment armed with a handgun and forced several people to the floor.

The only thing more disturbing than athletes carrying guns is athletes abusing women. It's debatable whether pro athletes are more prone than non-athletes to abuse women. But I led a national study in 1995 that examined the campus police records and internal judicial affairs records at 20 Division I institutions, most of which had top basketball or football programs. Among other things, we found that male student-athletes comprised 3.3 percent of the total male population, yet represented 19 percent of the perpetrators reported for sexual assault.

Things don't appear to have changed much since then. Women were the alleged victims in at least 22 of the 125 arrests involving basketball and football players so far this year. That's almost 20 percent. Most of these -- 14 -- involved domestic violence.

Of course what I've done here is not a scientific study. Nor do arrests equal convictions. No doubt some of the 125 cases against athletes that I have found so far this year will result in dropped charges. But let's not bury our heads in the sand here. If on average a football or basketball player is charged with a serious crime every other day, there's an undeniable problem. It starts with the type of players that some college coaches are willing to recruit. Until colleges and universities demand a higher standard, the problem will continue to get worse.

Missouri officials applied such a standard when they dismissed star running back Derrick Washington after he was charged with felony sexual assault in August (he was the fourth Tigers football player arrested in the month). Despite leading Missouri in rushing with 1,901 yards and 27 touchdowns over the past two seasons, Washington was permanently suspended under a University of Missouri policy that prohibits athletes charged with a felony from playing until the case is resolved. That's a policy that all schools should adopt.


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My only question is of the 125, how many was the total pool of athletes? If we are just counting D1 football and basketball ... there are 120 FBS schools ... at is it 75 scholarships per team ... thats already 9,000 kids. That isn't including ANYTHING basketball, nor is it including d-1-AA, d2, or d3 of football, if those numbers are to be recognized as well.

125 / 9000 is .0138 ... so I do think that slightly under 1 and a half percent is high ... but once again, does anyone know the crime rates of the average 17 to 23 year old bracket in the real world?

My *guess* is that it's above 1.5%

And then there is BYU......who suspended their STAR Forward of their #3 ranked Basketball Team at the most crucial time of the year when it was vying for a #1 seed in the tournament........for having premarital sex with his girlfriend.......which is a violation of the honor code the student agreed to abide by while attending Brigham Young University. That seems harsh...but you know...It is also a bit refreshing to see the scruples being adhered to when reading of other events as was brought up earlier in this thread.

Having sex with his girlfriend?! How did they find out?

Sure, he agreed to the code of conduct when joining but come on....

it's part of what he agreed to by going to BYU. they are extremely strict on that particular policy and have kicked people out of the school for multiple offenses in the past. it's the way they want things and it is their right as a private school to have such policies.

Ya, I get that but it still seems extreme. Again, how did they find out? Cameras in his room? He tell them? She told them? Someone ratted him out?

from the people I knew that went to BYU, it was almost always someone ratting them out.

much like RA's at other schools who will bust you for drinking underage, BYU has people who will report girls/boys leaving each others rooms in the morning, etc. then, when confronted, they are supposed to admit their guilt if they don't want to be kicked out of school.

Back when I was looking around at different colleges, there was one (and this had been in the last decade mind you) which was a small christian affiliated school. Mens and womens dorms were seperate yes, but you had to sign in to even enter the opposite sex's dorm. What's crazy besides the sign in / sign out thing is that if you had a person of the opposite sex in your dorm room, you couldn't close the door. You also had to follow a "three on the floor" rule which stated that between any two people ... at least three feet must be touching the floor to ensure no "funny business" could be going on.

They not only told us all of this just on a campus visit, but they were proud of it because that was their beliefs. I didn't end up going there ... but they still have enrollment upwards of 3 or 4 thousand people per graduating class.

Oral Roberts University by chance?