Bad News for Duke

[Sonny]

The Duke women's team will be wearing wristbands the read "Innocent" when they play in the Final Four. Also, Coach Pressler was invited to speak to the team.

LINK:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=2456262

[Sonny]

Good ESPN 2 opinion piece from Jason Whitlock......

By Jason Whitlock
Special to Page 2

We might as well call the Northwestern women's soccer hazing "scandal" exactly what it is: another step forward in the gender equality movement, a natural and positive byproduct of Title IX.

There's really no other non-sexist way to view it or describe it. The fact that in some quarters this dustup is being labeled a "scandal" just exposes how narrow-minded and hypocritical some people are.

You'll never convince me that similar pictures of the Northwestern men's soccer team -- sans the same-sex kissing and groping -- would make national news. Hazing is a rite of passage on college campuses and with sports teams. I'm not condoning it. I'm just saying there's no reason to act shocked that the women of Northwestern participate in it.

The suspension of the entire soccer team is a gigantic overreaction to the whole affair, and, just like the Duke lacrosse overreaction, sets a precedent that will soon bite some well-meaning school president in his bottom line.

Oh, it's easy to play tough cop on the morality beat when you're working non-revenue suburbs. But what's going to happen at Duke or Northwestern when their basketball or football players get busted for partaking in the same kind of activities that landed lacrosse and soccer players in trouble?

Funny how Colorado's football program survived multiple rape allegations and the employment of recruiting prostitutes without missing one regular-season contest, but two escorts with little credibility and a shaky story shut down the country's No. 2 lacrosse team and photos of college women drinking beer and kissing in their underwear halted a soccer squad.

LINK:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/st ... ock/060518

[horn17]

from my company....we do forensic work / data recovery....


http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/print?id=1996932

[Zamboni_Driver]

Although this relates only to a previous message and not to the intent of this thread....

As a Zamboni driver in colleg efor 4 years, I received 1 message at 3 am from a team at our university. It was from the women's team who had held a hazing event at the rink, and locked themselves out of their own locker room.

I had to to let them in, at the time, felt their tradition of induction was much worse than team I've participated in....

[FLALAX]

Article from ESPN.COM

Lacrosse culture crisis: Play hard, party hard

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/columns/ ... d=tab1pos2

[Sonny]

Article from ESPN.COM

Lacrosse culture crisis: Play hard, party hard

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/columns/ ... d=tab1pos2

The stuff is laughable....

A year after graduating from Dartmouth College, Andrew Goldstein remains understandably proud of his accomplishments as an All-American goalie for the lacrosse team. Recently, Goldstein discovered that not everyone cherishes the sport as much as he does.

Goldstein, wearing a Dartmouth lacrosse T-shirt, was walking along Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco when a stranger approached him and stridently asked, "You're still willing to wear that shirt in public?"

Taken aback, Goldstein said he believes that the decisions of a few do not represent an entire sport.

"What happened at Duke has reinforced how people view lacrosse players as the elite," says Goldstein, who will play Major League Lacrosse this summer for the Long Island Lizards. "It's completely unfair to pin all these things on the sport."

I don't see anyone stop wearing NFL or MLB or NBA gear when major athletes from those organizations were accused (and convicted) of worse crimes.

[ZagGrad]

I was in San Francisco last weekend at my friend's mom's workplace wearing a "Boston Lacrosse" t-shirt. One of my friend's mom's co-workers, who is black, approached me and said "Oh, lacrosse huh?" She said it with a smile, and I know she was joking, but the intent of it, I'm sure, was to bring some sort of underlying "You must be a racist rapist" meaning. I told her that is said "Boston" lacrosse, not Duke lacrosse.

I also wore the same shirt all over Paramount's Great America in San Jose and received many looks, but no confrontations. I will continue to wear every piece of lacrosse attire I have with no second thoughts about where I'm going.

[CSmizzle]

I don't see anyone stop wearing NFL or MLB or NBA gear when major athletes from those organizations were accused (and convicted) of worse crimes.

But pro sports are different - they're marketed on an individual "star" level unlike college sports. There is a certain amount of separation of the player from the team in the pro arena. Nobody stopped buying Lakers gear two years ago but they did stop buying Kobe Bryant jerseys.

[LAXFAN]

From the article linked above

While lacrosse players comprise .75 percent of the Duke undergraduate population of 6,244, they were responsible for 33 percent of the open container cases, 25 percent of the disorderly conduct cases and 21 percent of the alcohol-unsafe behavior cases

Those numbers are grossly distorted in some way. There is no possible way those statistics are true. Possibly they looked into the charges that were dropped to lesser charges such as an MIP for the lacrosse team, but only used the upheld court cases of MIP charges that were not dropped for the rest of the student population. Does anyone else have any input on this information?

[LaxRef]

From the article linked above

While lacrosse players comprise .75 percent of the Duke undergraduate population of 6,244, they were responsible for 33 percent of the open container cases, 25 percent of the disorderly conduct cases and 21 percent of the alcohol-unsafe behavior cases

Those numbers are grossly distorted in some way. There is no possible way those statistics are true. Possibly they looked into the charges that were dropped to lesser charges such as an MIP for the lacrosse team, but only used the upheld court cases of MIP charges that were not dropped for the rest of the student population. Does anyone else have any input on this information?

I agree. The only way these numbers are conceivable is if the team is being unfairly targeted. I could buy 3.3%, 2.5%, and 2.1% maybe, or I could buy that these are raw numbers of cases (in which case stating that the team comprises 0.75% of the population serves no purpose).

I found this:

http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/mmedia/fea ... eport.html

(search for "container"). You'll see raw numbers of incidents. If these stats are accurate, and if the sentence you quote is for this academic year, there have only been 3 open container violations at Duke all year!

[FLALAX]

I emailed the report who wrote the article for ESPN.COM to see how those figures were formulated.

I will post my finding............

[Sonny]

Duke women back men

DURHAM, N.C. - In a show of solidarity with Duke's beleaguered men's lacrosse team, members of the women's team plan to wear sweatbands with the word "Innocent" written on them. The university canceled the rest of the men's season because of a woman's complaint she was raped in March at a team party where she had been hired to strip. The women plan to wear the sweatbands when they play defending national champion Northwestern in the NCAA semifinals Friday.

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/05/25/Sport ... nhan.shtml

[laxdad03]

Statistics of small numbers. If there were 3 open containers at all of Duke (as reported), then 1 on the lacrosse team would be 33%; a disorderly incident of 1 lacrosse player would be 25% if there were 4 incidents at all of Duke; and the 21% alcohol unsafe behavior cases could be 3 of 14, or something. So 1 or 2 or 3 of some types of specific infractions could reflect huge percentages, if the infractions were chosen carefully. In order to be more meaningful, they should report a category (or combination of categories) large enough to have numbers with some semblance of statistical significance. Statistics (particularly statistics of small numbers) can often be made to say pretty much whatever you want them to say...

[LaxRef]

Statistics of small numbers. If there were 3 open containers at all of Duke (as reported), then 1 on the lacrosse team would be 33%; a disorderly incident of 1 lacrosse player would be 25% if there were 4 incidents at all of Duke; and the 21% alcohol unsafe behavior cases could be 3 of 14, or something. So 1 or 2 or 3 of some types of specific infractions could reflect huge percentages, if the infractions were chosen carefully.

I understand that. But the point is that there's no freaking way that a school with 7,000 people only has 3 open container violations in a year.

[laxdad03]

A very valid point. So perhaps part of it is that lacrosse players (or athletes in general, maybe) are in some way more visible (or targeted) and actually cited, or something, whereas others may not be? Or is there some other way in which these categories were selected, and the bulk of other "open container" issues shows up somewhere else? I.e., is it a total of 3 violations in a category like "open container violations by athletes in sports involving small hard rubber balls" or something?