Warren Jones arrested

[Da Coach]

For those who missed the discussion- David Kaplan talked about him doing the BU-Drake game, and how Ray Giacoletti is a close friend of his. He said Drake just dominated Bradley. But then he reported that Warren Jones and Ka'Darryl Bell were both arrested at Big Al's for the use of fake ID's.
"Other Bradley players may have also been involved".

Then the discussion evolved into how college kids commonly go to bars all the time.

[BU30]

Kap did NOT say other Bradley players may have been involved. He said other Bradley STUDENTS may have been involved.

[Da Coach]

I thought he said "other Bradley players" but I could have been mistaken. I hope you are right.

[tornado]

Maybe Kaplan was at Big Al's - I was not there, couldn't find parking..

[bigjimmy]

First off if some of the guys wanted to blow off some steam after their worst loss of the season I don't mind. But do it at your own place or maybe better yet get your heads out of your asses and start acting like a team who cares. Then again maybe this was an attempt, if there were more ball players at Big Al's, team bonding exercise. Nothing else has been working so far.

[tornado]

...players at Big Al's, team bonding exercise.....

now that's a cool recruiting tool...

[Da Coach]

For many years I have heard that visiting teams have looked forward to coming to Peoria to play Bradley for this very reason. More than a few members of the other MVC teams over the years have gotten into a bit of trouble with their coaches for visiting Big Al's and the other similar establishments in Peoria.
It used to be a bigger problem for opposing coaches back in the 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's when the visiting teams would usually stay at the Pere Marquette, and Big Al's and a couple other adult establishments were virtually adjacent to the hotel.

[RickBB]

I'm going to reply in this thread and do so with the hopes of not embarrassing anyone, offending anyone, or sounding hypocritical to the situation. Its a delicate balance.

First of all, college athletes drink and party like all college students do. You are naive if you think they don't. Most kids handle it where it doesn't effect their play, their school work, or their charitable obligations. Others don't. Are they given a great opportunity as scholarship athletes...absolutely. Can you expect them to live in a bubble, absolutely not.

When I arrived at BU was the last year Frats could serve alcohol out of kegs. It was fun, but it was also the beginning of a hyper-vigilant society surrounding college drinking. Greek parties turned into you could only drink whatever beer you brought and they gave you a ticket saying what you brought and the amount and it was checked off. If you think anyone was checking off the 24 Keystone Lights I brought to the basement of the DU house in the middle of a frat party, you envision there being better lighting in the basement than what there was.

I'm not making light of the fact some people's lives have been tragically altered by alcohol. And getting caught with a fake ID has much more serious consequences now than it did 20+ years ago. I once handed my fake ID to a BU cop who laughed and gave it back to me and said "Don't you know to never give your fake to a cop." No clue if they knew I was a BU athlete or not.

The truth is winning cures most, kids will be kids, and my athletic program is in shambles. And being 2 hours away from BU, most of the info I get is second hand, but it sounds like my university is as well. I can handle being embarrassed about my athletic program. It doesn't even bother me, sports is cyclical and you win some and you lose some. I just don't want to be embarrassed about the diploma on my wall.....that would be tragic.

[Canton BU fan]

So they get in with a fake ID but do they not think anyone will recognize them?

[tornado]

Rick-
I hear that point of view all the time...

kids will be kids,
everyone does it,
you are blind & naive if you think they're the only ones doing it,
it's no big deal - just a little fun & partying,
we did it too...etc...

Well, I have a slightly differing opinion - but please don't take it too critically because I am sure I will be accused of being a hypocrite or goody-two-shoes..

Here is my opinion summed up succintly:
-Rules are rules..once you begin excusing or ignoring rules violations it's a bad slippery slope
-The athletes are held to higher standard than average students (even the Athletic Dept admits this)
-All scholarship athletes agree to and sign CONTRACTS binding them to a behavioral code (referred to often in the media as Athletic Code violations)
-the entire atmosphere changes to a higher pitch when multiple players are or have been already in trouble and punished - should have been at the zero-tolerance level.
-All athletes should have 1 or 2 stern & inviolable rules on being in their dorms by 1am - especially weeknites, and NOT violating underage or other ALCOHOL laws
(especially since multiple kids at Bradley have been KILLED recently in alcohol related misbehavior - or had you not heard - LINK - LINK)
-lastly any talk of how it's benign, everyone's doing it, and we are being unreasonable by citing it as a problem - only serves to make the problem WORSE and downplay dangerous, self-destructive & "others-destructive", and criminal behavior.
And I am here to say NOT everyone is doing it....
to claim everyone's doing it is downright stupid and/or dishonest...
I did not do it and know many people who did not do it -
a comment like "everyone's doing it" it as senseless and inaccurate as "everyone's cheating on their tests" or "everyone's cheating on their wives"...

[Da Coach]

...The truth is winning cures most, kids will be kids, and my athletic program is in shambles. And being 2 hours away from BU, most of the info I get is second hand, but it sounds like my university is as well. I can handle being embarrassed about my athletic program. It doesn't even bother me, sports is cyclical and you win some and you lose some. I just don't want to be embarrassed about the diploma on my wall.....that would be tragic.

While I agree with most of what you said, I do not think this issue is related to whether a program is winning or not. Losing is never a reason for an athlete to get arrested or be involved in illegal activities.
And we hear the "kids will be kids" line every time something like this happens. But these athletes spend hours and hours with compliance people, and other mentors in the athletic department, and going over the very strict written Code of Conduct that all athletes who represent a University have to abide by. And Bradley's Code is stricter than a lot of schools, but they know that. The degree of illegal activity certainly matters. There are some violations that are much worse than others, even the law and the BU Code clearly state that. But it is never excusable, and is embarrasses the university.



BTW, here is the PJS article- nothing new

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20150129/SPORTS/150129080

Lets just see how the PJ Star writers handle this. Will they write multiple columns calling for stricter punishment, calling out the coach, AD, and program "renegade"? I think we all know the answer to that. It didn't happen even after weeks went by after the Barnes arrest and no discipline was applied- there was not a word from the PJ Star gurus, and it won't happen now.

[Chico]

You know what Hawk Harrelson would say. "They gone". Good riddance.

[mvcfan]

I admit I to once got caught with a fake id. This has been a law for a long time but unfortunately the state started cracking down on it again back in the early 2000's. I lost my license for a year and had to go thru many things such as alcohol evaluations. Much of this was way over done in my situation and has been my only brush with the law. The problem people have with this situation is going to be when and where it happened. Did they walk out the Civic Center and head down the block? I thought Geno would do better then he has. Admittedly being an ISU fan it is a lot more fun when both programs can both compete at the same time. Geno's problem now is he is not only losing games he has lost the program.

[sparkplug]

There was a previous comment made that in Jim Les's last year both Sammy and Taylor Brown were out for the season and neither that or the fact that Jim was a major factor in securing funding for the Renaissance Center was considered in him being fired. What I'm wondering is how does the board of trustees bring someone in that destroys relations with Jim Les, Alumni and other educators? "Once a Brave always a Brave". If I was a betting man I would say UC Davis will be back in the NCAA long before Bradley! I hope they do due diligence this time and soon.

[RickBB]

Tornado....I respect your opinion, and I'm certainly willing to engage in a mutually respectful discussion.

In full disclosure I was part of Dewey's 93 team and that had several of us out drinking during a conference weekend against ISU where we were suspended afterwards. Closing Sullys was a fairly regular occurrence (You can insert joke about baseball players not being athletes if you wish )

Dewey always told us he would give us enough rope to hang ourselves with....and that rope got a lot shorter for the remainder of the season. It also galvanized us where we swept Creighton the next weekend. And although the punishment was handled internally it made the newspapers the next day. Some may say that loss to ISU on Sunday kept us from getting an NCAA bid (We ended up 40-16)....but in truth it was probably a midweek loss to Illinois Weslyan that sealed our fate more than that conference game.

Now there were no laws broken in the incident above. Maybe university rules as a whole were different back them....I'm just sharing my personal experience. Were there athletes drinking. There were. Were there athletes not drinking....sure there were. I was pretty straight and narrow in high school and if the current rules were in place in 25 years ago (ouch, it hurts to say that) then maybe my social life at BU would have had a minimum of alcohol consumption. Who knows?