Virginia Tech has been through disciplinary problems before with their
football team, and at various times in the past, the football coaches and VT
administration have puffed out their chests and promised to crack down on poor
behavior. There has been talk before about protecting the image of the
university and the integrity of the football program; steps are sometimes taken,
but bad behavior and bad publicity have always cropped up again. This time the
rhetoric has a different focus, and I find myself wondering: Is this time
different? Or are we just hearing an old, tired song?

I’m not here to give a litany of past transgressions by Tech’s football team
and the disciplinary responses to them, but a few major events in recent history
stand out and give perspective to the current discussion.

• In 1995-1996, there were 19 arrests of football players in various
  incidents, the most infamous being the Blacksburg Brawl, in which seven
  players and one former player were arrested for beating Tech track athlete
  Hilliard Sumner. 1995 also featured a long, ongoing storm of bad publicity
  as a result of a
  rape accusation made by former student Christy Brzonkala against
  football players Tony Morrison and James Crawford.
• In early 1997, in response to the storm of bad publicity over the behavior
  of the football team, the University drafted and put into place a Comprehensive
  Action Plan (CAP) governing the behavior of student-athletes. The
  CAP was an attempt to outline expectations for the behavior of athletes and
  to standardize punishments for arrests and convictions, as well as the use
  of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs. One purpose of the CAP was to take
  some of the decision-making for punishment out of the hands of the coaches
  and put it in the hands of the athletic director.
• In February of 2000, defensive lineman Derrius Monroe was arrested for
  felony cocaine distribution. In August of that year, Monroe pled guilty to
  felony cocaine possession, and under his plea agreement, the conviction was
  deferred. If Monroe complied with requirements laid out for him, including
  community service, for two years, his record would be cleared, and the
  felony conviction would never appear on it. Despite pleading guilty to the
  felony charge, which required his dismissal from the team per the CAP,
  Monroe was reinstated to the football team for practices during the 2000
  season, and he later played in the 2001 season. Many observers (yours truly
  included) felt the decision to reinstate Monroe “gutted” the CAP.
  Since the Monroe situation, the CAP has slipped out of the public
  consciousness, and it’s not clear if it is still used by the university.
• In 2004 and 2005, a well-documented string of incidents involving
  high-profile quarterback Marcus Vick resulted in multiple arrests of Vick,
  his suspension from the university for the 2004 football season, and
  ultimately his dismissal from the football team after the 2005 season. Vick
  was given multiple second chances, and his repeated presence in the news
  media (for all the wrong reasons) kept Virginia Tech’s disciplinary policies
  in the public eye.
• As a result of poor on-field behavior and the publicity firestorm around
  Vick, Frank Beamer put new disciplinary policies in place prior to the 2006
  season, in an effort to improve player behavior. Those policies include
  losing bowl per diem money and running wind sprints for personal fouls. A
  number of players have since been arrested, suspended, and in the case of
  William Wall, even dismissed from the team.

It all came to a head once again last Thursday night with a few more
embarrassing on-field incidents and a tirade by respected ESPN analyst Kirk
Herbstreit about how the Hokies had lost their lunchpail mentality.

University students, alumni, faculty, staff, administrators, and fans of the
football team are embarrassed and outraged, but this is nothing new. We were all
embarrassed and outraged in 1996. Many of us were embarrassed and outraged in
2000, with the Monroe situation. Almost everyone was embarrassed and outraged
with Marcus Vick’s behavior. So what makes this go-round any different?
Seriously, what makes this any different?

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