Why an NCAA-Wide Drug Policy is Necessary to Prevent the Georgia Bulldogs from Unilaterally Disarming Themselves

Well, that, or in the NFL with a BCS national championship ring. Y’know, whatever.

the NCAA would probably loophole, overregulate, or find some other way to screw it up. Don’t rely on the corrupt idiots, just take care of it ourselves conference wide.

I’m a card-carrying member of a couple of national organizations for the reform of certain drug laws, but the fact is those laws haven’t been reformed. Consequently, I’ve had to adjust my personal conduct to conform to aspects of Georgia and U.S. law that I find objectionable. I think of it, to an extent, as rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. (I don’t do turkey calls, by the way, and I’ve yet to shoot or capture my first Nazi, but that’s another story.)

I don’t think it’s reasonable to put our athletic department in the position of making a determination of whether an athlete is using a substance “responsibly”. Setting aside the notion that intentional criminal activity is prima facie irresponsible behavior, making further distinctions about substance use and abuse is more than I want or need our program to do. And this “setting aside” is an academic exercise only, anyway. The criminal nature of the conduct cannot be set aside and, like it or not, requires the conversation to be one of how much punishment and not whether to punish.

I have often said that I would vote for a Libertarian for president (I voted for Bob Barr in the last presidential election, as a matter of fact), but I wouldn’t vote for a Libertarian for the school board. Likewise, I tell my Libertarian friends, “I’ll quit being paternalistic when you quit being childish.”

Even those of us who believe the national government is too big and spends too much money believe that there are certain essential functions it is necessary to have the national government perform. As I indicated above, I generally don’t favor strong centralized authority, but it’s necessary in some instances.

You’re right that the NCAA is a regulatory agency that essentially operates like a national government for intercollegiate athletics. A lot of its rules are nitpicky and a lot of the enforcement is selective, but, if we’re going to have an NCAA, surely this is something they ought to regulate, much as they regulate recruiting. It’s also worth noting that, while reasonable people certainly can oppose some of the drug laws the national government adopts, the NCAA is as bound by those laws as the rest of us, and, while they’re on the books, violations of those laws ought to be treated at least as seriously as, say, emerging from an alley or forgetting to pay a speeding ticket.

As an aside, it has been my experience that, when push comes to shove, most people like government decisions with which they agree, dislike government decisions with which they disagree, and rationalize as necessary to justify their predetermined preferences. That may make us all hypocrites; it also merely may make us human.

Oh. The NCAA. Yeah, I guess that’ll work too.

When I saw the drug report the other day, my immediate response was something similar to Kyle’s. The reason Carolina backed off their two tests and done policy is it not only put us an a disadvantage in terms of keeping kids in school, but a huge recruiting disadvantage.

Rival coaches would tell parents, “They’ve got a drug problem. Look at that kid they kicked out. You don’t want to trust your son to them”, while on official visits, their athletes would say, “You don’t want to go there. You can’t get away with anything.” The most common offender was our in-state rival, one of the handful of schools that does not even suspend a player for a second offense.

We had to alter out policy to three strikes just to remain competitive.

That’s pretty darned close to unilateral.

I notice you conveniently focused on the 2008 and 2009 Cocktail Parties, two of the only three Georgia-Florida games of the last nine years to have been decided by more than a touchdown. (Georgia won the other double-digit decision.) In a series as close as this one has been on the scoreboard in the last decade, little differences can mean a lot.

I am well aware that Chris Rainey’s offense was not alcohol- or drug-related. My point was that Florida sets very low standards for athlete behavior, and area law enforcement cooperates. The bulk of Georgia’s player arrests are for minor traffic offenses that do not result in arrests in Gainesville; the remainder resulted in stiff punishments, frequently resulting in the player’s departure from the team. Rainey is emblematic of the less stringent sanctions imposed upon Gator players, although there are numerous other examples.

If you don’t think Florida’s “anything goes” approach to player behavior helps the Gators, both in recruiting and on the field of play, you’re kidding yourself. If Florida had a stricter drug policy, would Jarvis Moss have been on the field to block the field goal that kept the Gators in contention for the 2006 national championship?

had Jimmy Williamson as their chief of police and if UF had UGA’s drug policy, Florida would have a damn hard time even fielding enough talent to compete. I suggest you go back and examine the nefarious activity that the majority of Georgia players have been busted for. It’s laughable. And, it’s destoyed the credibility of The Fulmer Cup/being snarky.

Sure, we’d like to win at UGA, but not at the expense of win-at-all costs. I think this is where Florida finds itself, or close to it.

You make a compelling case for setting the standard at the SEC level. Nice job.

Georgia is one of only two SEC programs that imposes a mandatory suspension for a first positive drug test. Even if we assume that lax policies regarding athlete behavior don’t factor into some recruits’ decisions (an assumption I find highly dubious), it certainly helps teams keep athletes eligible and on the field.

Imagine, for example, that the General Assembly repealed all traffic laws in Georgia, and everyone in the state knew that he could drive as fast as he liked, park wherever he liked, drive as drunk as he liked, run into other vehicles as often as he liked, and emerge from alleys with willful abandon without fear of being arrested, being ticketed, or having his license suspended. Even if no athlete chose to accept a scholarship offer to play football in Athens as a result of that change in the law, think of how many Bulldog players would not lose playing time as a result.

If Florida had Georgia’s drug test policy, would Jarvis Moss have been on the field to block the would-be game-winning field goal against South Carolina in 2006? Think how different life would have been had the Gamecocks made that kick: Urban Meyer would have been 0-2 against Steve Spurrier, the Gators would not have gone to that year’s national championship game, and Coach Meyer might well have gone into the 2007 season (in which Florida lost four games and fielded a terrible defense) on the hot seat under the watchful eye of the famously impatient Jeremy Foley. Might there have been a new coach in Gainesville in 2008? Would a first-year head coach have won a national title? Might history have told an entirely different tale?

Football is game of inches and consistency, every bit as much so as baseball. Moss was allowed to get high off the field, which is what allowed him to get high on the field. The Gators’ willingness to recruit and retain a lower caliber of individual enables them to recruit and retain a higher caliber of athlete. Any program that is not hamstrung by standards is at a competitive advantage over any program that is. It is naive to assume that this advantage did not make a difference in one or more of the games that ended with final scores of 20-13, 16-13, 14-10, 21-14, and 34-31.