A scandal hit hard at Landon High School in Bethesda, four years ago in April, 2006. The kids worried about their friends who had graduated and played lacrosse for Duke University*. Their old teammates were now accused of gang rape.
The college students, all team players, under-aged at the time, and had partied hard at an off campus residence. They invited a stripper, African American, and allegedly brutally raped her. The boys were subsequently exonerated following an emotional investigation. Race had something to do with it, we understand.
George Huguely, at the time a student at Langdon, told the Washington Post in 2006:
"I sympathize for the team. They've been scrutinized so hard and no one knows what has happened yet. In this country, you're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. I think that's the way it should be."
George, who now plays lacrosse at the University of Virginia, was arrested for murder this morning.
The Duke case, and others, like one at the University of Notre Dame, brought attention to the rape culture associated with athletes and alcohol-- fraternities and drinking, too, on campus. Now we're talking a whole new level of violence. George Huguely is the prime suspect in the murder of his girlfriend, also a lacrosse player, Yeardly Love.
Surely there can't be an association, not when it comes to our kids, between athleticism and murder! All they want to do is play ball, hopefully win. If they party and they drink, they're in there with your average American collegian.
But maybe the variables that add up to violence on campus, be it rape or murder, include the following:
alcohol
competition
and maybe privilege
Athletes are gifted, they are rewarded. They do feel they have things coming to them. Look at Mike Tyson, Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods, to name a few.
On campus our athletes are treated like gold. Their dorms are better, they have food allowances, cars, scholarships. And groupies.
Maybe it's time to cut that out, the privilege part. Certainly if we find that privilege means that if you have an argument and you lose, you're driven to kill. It's all hypothetical, of course, that athletes are more driven, more passionate. And the lesson from Duke is clear: Innocent until proven guilty.
Still, it's something to think about, isn't it? Taking the privilege out of college sports? Because we can't take away the competition, and there's no way kids will stop drinking.
But they should do that, too, of course. Drinking been shown, time and time again, to be associated with violence. It disinhibits, you know? And we need those inhibitions, actually, to be civilized.
Linda Freedman, PhD
