Character Issues

Excerpted from a South Bend Tribune article:

Of Rivals.com's top 20 prospects in the '05 class, five bypassed their senior seasons and were selected last month in the NFL draft. Two of the five, Oregon running back Jonathan Stewart and Miami safety Kenny Phillips, were first-round selections.

Another 11 of the 20 have been arrested.

 

Shocking, I tell you shocking.

FWIW, while I know most coaches feel like they are recruiting good character kids and for the most part I'm sure that is true. But there is no real way that these guys can see into the future and see what being away from home and getting to Party hardy without parents around to rein them will bring in terms of getting in trouble with the law.

 

I want to try and offer perspective on these stats.

It goes hand in hand with what I say about cops trying to make a name for themselves, etc.

Simply put....the immunities granted 25-30 years are long gone.

Kids...athletes....adults even for that matter 30 years ago would just about have to hit a tree before they would get a DUI.

Now all you have to do in most communities is forget to put your turn signal on and the sirens come on and breathalyzers come out.

It's a much different world today and I don't think young athletes are behaving any different than those of 30 years ago it's just that anything they do is immediately scrutinized and punished by the local gendarmes.

I was in a bar last Sat. night near my house and a retired local detective I am friends with was at the bar and a friend he was drinking with at the bar had a flat tire over in Grosse Pointe Shores on Lakeshore Drive which is a great place to get a DUI.

My friend was called by this guy to come out and perhaps talk with the cop who pulled up behaind the disabled vehicle so that he wouldn't get a DUI. I strongly advised my detective friend to stay put because he no longer had the pull with the local police that he once did and would find himself most assuredly getting his own DUI instead.

Then he thought about it and then called his buddy with better advice.....have his car towed by a tow truck and ride in the truck back to his house. Don't know if it worked or not but it was worth a try.

The point is no one is immune and everything anyone does gets the hammer almost without exception....even athletes and I don't feel that today's breed of athletes is of any worse character than those of the last generation.

 

… and 30 to 40 years ago, the penalty for a man beating a woman in his own house was a slap on the wrist. Is it a good thing that police have tightened up on that offense?

… and 30 to 40 years ago, DWI was not considered to be as deadly as it actually is. Statistics show now that intoxicated drivers kill people. Should the police wait for a driver to kill someone before they throw the book at them for DWI?

… and 30 to 40 years ago, it was common practice for cops to run interference for their buddies. Now, they run the chance of being convicted of obstruction charges for the same activities and rightfully so. If your buddy detective tried to intervene, he is not just part of the problem. He is a MAJOR part of the problem.

 

It is a different world.

When I was a freshman in college I had a fake ID, it wasn't even a very good one. Not to mention I hardly looked 18 much less 21, the first and only time I used it was in a honky tonk down in San Marcos Texas. They served me and I figured I was home free, but somebody called the local constable and they checked my crappy ID and of course could spot it was fake. They took me outside and told me to get out of San Marcos and if they ever caught me again with a fake ID I'd go to jail. The wouldn't do that today.

When I was in Dental School I was pulled over after a Friday night stress relief session (Beer bash at the Frat House), the cop gave me a speeding ticket and asked if I'd been drinking I said yes, he said "Son you need to go straight home" and that was it. That wouldn't happen today.

I just don't think the cops are targeting football players in University towns, I think some football players have a sense of entitlement that leads them to be argumentative when confronted by the cops and that leads to more problems. These guys don't fool around when confronted by a non-cooperating individual. All you have to do is watch the tv show COPS and you'll see that if you don't comply right away they will make you comply forcibly.

 

Is it that or are they simply trying to protect the many innocent drivers and occupants who become the targets for intoxicated drivers whose cars are potential weapons of death and destruction? There are millions more cars driving on the same streets and roads than 30-40 years ago, and as Terry said, it's a completely different world. I am one of those who appreciates the vigilance of law enforcement in doing the best they can to keep my loved ones safe from ignorant, irresponsible people who may understand the dangers of drinking and driving but are too arrogant or stupid to care......until they have to face the consequences.

How's that for perspective?

 

I remember my freshman year in college when one of the gym coaches talking to us gave the advice that if you had to much to drink make sure and drive extra careful!

That wouldn't happen today either.

I agree with the crackdown on DUI's. As I think back on some incidents when I was driving I get appalled about what I had done. Fortunately nothing happened, but today I would not do what I did some times in the past.

Even if I was that young again.

Times have changed in that area and I think for the better.

 

Bill, age and experience changes all of us over time, doesn't it? As the old saying goes, if only I knew then what I know now..........

If I could go back in time to my younger days, I sure would change my fundamental approach to life. I was among those who miraculously survived multiple instances of poor judgement as a younger man. That's all I'll say.

 

amen to that Sid....amen. I'll chime in and speak about one of those intstances of poor judgement and relevant to the topic..... 27 years ago I was busted for DUI. In hindsight, I'm thankful for the arrest as I could have killed somebody and ruined many lives including my own.....drunk drivers kill. Let's not fool ourselves...if you get behind the wheel under the influence, you are an eyelash from killing somebody. They are a menace to society and need to be taken off the streets.

 

I'll drink to th... oops not appropriate for the conversation!

Working with the Fire Department for many years in Jarrell, I have seen first hand the devastation caused by mental midgets getting behind the wheel with high blood alcohol levels.

One Sunday morning at approximately 1 a.m., our pager went off for a major 10-50 (accident) in the North bound lanes of 1-35 at mile marker 278. Cindy, myself, and two others were on scene first. We found the remains of a Nissan pickup and a Pontiac Minivan. The two vehicles had hit head on and came to rest over 100 yards apart. The Nissan was traveling South in the North bound lanes. The Pontiac Minivan was occupied by a Canadian couple on their way home from vacation. The drunk in the Nissan had a blood alcohol level of .23, almost three times the legal limit. He sustained seatbelt rash to his right hip and a puncture hole in his lower lip. The Canadian couple was not so lucky.

This guy didn't kill anyone but he came extremely close. He has to live with their injuries as a constant reminder while he sits in a prison cell convicted of attempted vehicular homicide. They get to suffer the affects of broken limbs and crushed rib cages for the rest of their lives. I can quote many of these reasons for be to despise drinking and driving. I can not stand anyone that would criticize the police for taking these morons off the road.

 

On the night before I was to leave for my first year at the University of Florida a drunk driver skidded across the median and in a flash of headlights was a millisecond from ending my life as he brushed into my gas tank area but did not puncture it in a glancing blow at 70 mph.

I was oh so close to being a 19 year old victim of a guy who had lost his license for multiple offenses and was so drunk he could barely speak but did manage to mumble a slurred.."I lost it"...or something to that effect.

Guys like that or even close to that should be buried under the jail.

I am referring in my statements above to those of us who have a couple of drinks close to home and could drive safely for 200 miles if we had to but that doesn't matter anymore as police no longer utilize their own judgement and try to give you break if one should be given.

 

Police use the legal limit and whether you are impared or not. If you...

...then no problem. The police will not bother you. But if you...

... are impared and/or blow more than the legal limit, they better throw your rear end in the drunk tank so you don't kill me!

That is the problem MCG. People want the drunks off the streets but believe they can themselves handle it and should be left alone. That is NOT the case! If you are impared, you will go to jail and will deserve to go there. If you drink and are not impared, the police will have no choice but to let you go.

 

Well Tom .08 is not too hard to achieve so mostly when I go out with my wife who never wants to drive I wind up not drinking at all or having one before dinner and that's it.

Otherwise I may have 2 or 3 early in the evening while picking up a carry out for dinner but that's it max.

When I travel and rent a car I park the thing at night before heading out to meet clients and always cab it.

I'm pretty paranoid about getting a DUI and with good reason.

 

As long as you look at it as being paranoid of getting a DUI, you will always be in jeopardy of making the mistake that takes someone's life. By your comments, you are mainly concerned over how your actions will afffect only you. I hope I am reading this incorrectly.

In my late teenage years and early 20's that is the way I thought. When drinking, I would think about how not to get caught. I never got a DWI/DUI but I certainly deserved several. When I finally started thinking about the devestation I could cause in the lives of others, I began to realize that if I had anything at all, I could not drive. After a few years of those actions, I didn't need to drink anymore.

I do occasionally have a drink. After seeing a few alcohol related fatal accidents, your views will change. You too would be reminded of the mangled bodies every time you look into a glass of ale.

 

Not that a glass of ale can mangle bodies by itself. It's people acting irresponsibly and illegally that do that.

I just hate to see that kind of statement tossed around. It's like some anti-gun nut saying "You too would be reminded of lifeless corpses every time you look at a firearm"

 

Not sure how you draw this conclusion from what I said Tom.

I am more repsonsible than most social drinkers by far.

It's more like what BDR is saying.

You have to drink respsonsibly and in my case I take that even further most of the time because the cops around here take it a step further as well these days by looking for reasons to pull someone over whether or not they look like drunk drivers or not.

The problem is that it increases local revenue coffers but the real assholes are still out there driving because they are that irresponsible.

I will say though that I am glad if the increased enforcement keeps more of those jerks off the road.

 

I'll let you in on a little secret. Most police forces are understaffed.They don't have the time nor the inclination to entrap you. They have plenty to do already.

 

jesus this makes my head hurt

<t>the reason the police have less tolerance and arrest more isn't some grand conspiracy...its the direct result of whiny asses saying stupid things like 'there outta be a law...'<br/>
<br/>
or, 'we should have measures in place to protect our children from these evils that we grew up with..'<br/>
<br/>
check your head and position on this subject if that sounds familiar.<br/>
<br/>
I use to produce those fake IDs in HS en masse, today I'd be in Gitmo if caught.. Not because of George W mind you, but because some psycho ass soccer mom and her lawyer wanted to make a name for themselves 'in the name of the children.'<br/>
<br/>
Don't even get me started on the prohibitionists and their DUI laws.....</t>

 

Well Corey, I finally found something that we will have to agree to disagree on. DUI/DWI (depending on what state you are in) laws are a good thing in my opinion.

If you could count on everyone to be socially responsible, there would be no need for those laws. I agree there. However, you can't count on that so there is a need. I have scraped enough bodies up off the pavement to not be convinced otherwise. Corey, you can’t tell me that you think drunk driving is a good thing.


BDR,

Those two statements are nothing alike. When a psycho kills someone with a gun, it is still the psycho that is in control of the weapon, not the weapon in control of the psycho. When the alcohol is in the drunk driver, it IS the alcohol that is slowing his/her reaction time and numbing his/her senses.

Both,

Don’t get me wrong. I do not want to do away with alcohol. I want those that get behind the wheel after they have been drinking to be put away.

 

Imagine if we harnessed all the energy put into concocting conspiracy theories and ways to circumvent established laws and channnled that energy into something constructive..... :?