Instructors at community colleges have enough trouble getting students to turn in their homework. It’s absurd to imagine that professors at four-year universities also have to enforce leading a “chaste and virtuous life.”
In the case of sophomore Brandon Davies, star basketball player for the Brigham Young University Cougars, it didn’t work.
Well, duh.
The Salt Lake Tribune reported that, on Feb. 28, Davies confessed to having consensual sex with his girlfriend, thus admitting to violating BYU’s Honor Code, which forbids students from partaking in premarital sex, even if both parties are of adult age.
The next day, BYU officials suspended Davies from the team for the rest of the season and are still deciding on his fate as a student.
The Cougars fell to the University of New Mexico 82-64 on March 2—their first game without Davies—and were eliminated in the Elite Eight round of the NCAA Tournament by the University of Florida.
But something just doesn’t add up.
We’ve all seen the sport drinks commercials and hip-hop music videos. Professional male athletes aren’t people, they’re gold-encrusted gods who illuminate the court and tower over their opponents.
Sexual encounters with these otherworldly beings are guaranteed to make women filthy rich by association.
College athletes are on the fast track to the easy life.
Surely, the school overreacted and should have allowed Davies to plead temporary insanity due to March Madness.
Not really, considering that all enrolled students—star athletes or average procrastinators—sign a contract to uphold the 136-year-old Honor Code rooted in Mormon principles.
The Honor Code at BYU, among other things, also prohibits students from drinking alcoholic beverages and smoking.
The school vehemently enforces this code, even when the Centers for Disease Control reported in July 2010 that 91 percent of men 20 to 44 years of age admit to having premarital sex and approximately 46.6 million American adults smoke.
In an era when athletes are expected to sell seats based on their sex appeal just as much as their talent, it makes more sense for an institution to enforce safe sex, rather than abstinence.
However, in an era when younger people have more opportunities to attend college than their parents did, it makes even more sense to shop around and pick a school that caters to your personality, vices and all.
Davies could have avoided the suspension, had he accepted scholarship offers from UC Berkeley, University of Arizona, Utah State University, or Gonzaga University schools that don’t require their students to strap on chastity belts.
In the words of Dr. Daniel Smith, dean of physical education and athletics at Cerritos College, “If I was a student and I wanted to do those things, then I’m not going to go to BYU.
“So, when you look at those things and decide, ‘Those are things that I really want to do,’ pick another school… No one’s forcing you to go there.”
This is sound advice from the BYU alum and former basketball coach of BYU Hawaii. In his three years coaching on the island, he recruited from hundreds of Mormon and non-Mormon athletes to find the lucky 45 he settled on.
Not once during their time on the team did his players do something “dishonorable”—a claim he has based on the specific attitude he learned to look for.
“If I knew that a kid was a chain smoker, why would I recruit the kid? It would be a total waste, so I had to do more homework.
“The majority of the students never even think about it. They sign that honor code thing and they
think, ‘I don’t do any of those things, anyway, so what difference does it make?’ Just sign it, and go on.”
We can safely assume that these regulations wouldn’t fly at a two-year institution like Cerritos College.
It would be illegal for those precious tax dollars to “jock block” student athletes, and, quite honestly, the idea is laughable.
Cerritos College’s honor code, listed in the first pages of the class schedule, has more to do with academic honesty and plagiarism than personal habits.
Smith said, “These things are so inherent in any college student that I don’t think you would need to have someone sign something saying, ‘I promise I won’t cheat.'”
Agreed. So keep your eyes on your own paper and be happy you’re not also required to keep your hands to yourself.
A total of 31 violations to the District’s Standards of Conduct are listed starting on page 61 of the summer schedule, followed by another half page dedicated to the Academic Honesty/Dishonesty Policy.
Here, Cerritos outlines the 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not cheat on thine exams.
Okay, we get it.
It’s an obvious truth, but one that students sometimes feel pressured to break when everything is riding on that midterm worth 25 percent of the class grade.
Cerritos College’s honor code, listed in the back pages of the class schedule, has more to do with academic honesty and plagiarism than personal habits.
