Because he engaged in pre-marital sex with his girlfriend, starting center Brandon Davies was kicked off of Bringham Young University’s basketball team for the rest of the season. Ranked 3rd in the country, BYU will miss their star center and may not advance in the NCAA tournament. Some may say it’s not fair to the rest of the team. But I applaud BYU and their honor code for sticking to their principles. Davies, we all hope, will learn from this and become a better man for it.
Full story here, bits below.
These days, bad behavior among college athletes is a fact of campus life.
…
College athletics is a multibillion-dollar enterprise, and the pressure to win at any cost — including turning a blind eye to
Brandon Davies
player misbehavior — can be overwhelming. That’s why the news this week that Brigham Young University (BYU) would force starting center Brandon Davies to miss the rest of the season for violating the school’s honor code was so surprising.
…
But the most surprising fact of the story is that Davies got booted for behavior that wasn’t criminal. What he did takes place, to put it mildly, every day in colleges across the country: Davies had sex with his girlfriend.
BYU is owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which frowns on premarital relations. Davis, like 98% of BYU students, is a Mormon. Upon entering the school, students vow to abide by its honor code, which prohibits premarital sex as well as indulging in alcohol or coffee. “The honor code is an essential part of your recruitment to BYU,” says Hall of Fame quarterback and ESPN analyst Steve Young, who played at BYU from 1981 to ’83. “It’s not like you find out later — ‘Oh, you didn’t tell me! I didn’t know that!’ But there’s a spirit on campus that is just, ‘O.K., fine, now let’s now go have a good time.’”
…
But you have to admire an institution that sticks by its principles. “The expression of love between a man and a woman is sacred, valued at the highest level,” says Shawn Bradley, the 7-ft. 6-in. former NBA player who spent a year at BYU and spent two years on a mission in Australia before entering the 1993 draft. Indeed, many BYU alums say they support the school’s decision. “Sorry, I’m choking up a bit here,” says Philadelphia sportscaster Vai Sikahema, a former NFL return specialist who played for BYU in the mid-1980s. “It’s just hard for me to express just how immensely proud I am of my university.”
He should be. When it comes to athletes and sex, the easy call is to let the jocks slip. On any campus, athletes are visible, and popular, especially when a team is winning. And though it’s probably easier for a student to squelch his or her desires at a place where all 30,000 undergrads are also trying to stay chaste, suppression is still a challenge. “It was difficult for me,” says Bradley, a devout Mormon. “We all have those urges. You’re dealing with hormones, which are out in full force. But you have to stay focused, and put yourself in the right places to protect yourself.”
…
Davies may learn a great deal from this experience. “This could be a seminal moment in this young man’s life,” says Sikahema. “Better that it happens at 20, rather than 50, with four kids. He’ll probably be a better man, and that’s ultimately what BYU is about, building leaders, building men. If that means missing out a chance at the Final Four, well, that’s what happens.”
Would any other school pay that price? More than likely, too few would pass the Brandon Davies test.
Other also read:
[...] Colleen Hammond | Masculinity | Is BYU's Premarital Sex … [...]
[...] Colleen Hammond | Masculinity | Is BYU's Premarital Sex … [...]
This action will hurt BYU athletics. If the first sentence of the story read: “Because he engaged in sex with his UNDERAGE girlfriend…” then the punishment would be perfectly appropriate. But his girlfriend is an adult, and sex between two consenting adults in a private place is no one else’s business, especially a university’s. Those days ended half a century ago.
BYU can’t have it both ways. If the school wants to attract the caliber of athletes required to compete for national championships, it has to get with the times. Otherwise, it will have squeaky-clean, chaste student-athletes who abide by the code of honor and may have some pretty good teams, but not championship contenders. This, indeed, may be what’s best for BYU and its athletes, but it’s too bad for Jimmer Fredette and the rest of that really good team.
One other thing: The school’s policy of refusing to play games on certain days of the week often causes problems for the NCAA selection committee. If BYU’s policy causes a conflict with seeding and/or regional placement, then BYU should be accommodated by seeding them one level lower, rather than giving an unfairly low seed to another equally good team that is willing to play any day, anywhere.