Off-the-Field Transgressions Giving College Football a Black Eye

It always has been said that one of the best ways to keep a kid off the streets and out of trouble is to get him involved in sports.

The structure and commitment needed to be part of a team - two- or three-hour practices every day - doesn't provide a lot of time to get in trouble after school. Work them hard enough so they'll be too pooped to pop, to borrow a phrase from the 1960s.

It's the same way with big-time athletics, where the responsibities are even greater, given the demands of practice, film sessions and studying - believe it or not, some athletes do actually study. Being a member of a big-time football or basketball program is almost like a full-time job. There just isn't a lot of idle time.

Invariably, some players, who have no business being in college in the first place, still manage to get in trouble during the season. Still, more often than not it seems that when you do read of a college athlete running afoul of the law it happens during the offseason. More down time to fall prey to booze and broads.

And this has not been a good summer for college football as the police blotter grows longer. Every day you pick up the newspaper it seems you read about some player from another Division I-A program getting suspended for some transgression. The season, still three weeks away, can't start soon enough.

College football coaches have been known to pass the buck occasionally, but they are right in one regard. They can not watch their charges 24 hours a day. They are supposed to be young adults, though you'd be hard-pressed to believe it. Maybe the universities should hire round-the-clock baby sitters for their man-children.

You could form a pretty good team with some of the suspended players. Leading the way would be former Oklahoma quarterback Rhett Bomar. Seems he and teammate - - offensive lineman J.D. Quinn - accepted money for work they did not perform at a car dealership in Norman, Oklahoma. Wonderful. When Oklahoma learned of this, they were dismissed from the team. Bomar's absence is a huge loss for the Sooners, who are expected to contend for the national championship this season.