<p>I haven't seen this discussed on CC yet. From today's Boston Globe:
Graphic</a> details emerge from BU hockey panel reports - News - Boston.com</p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>
<p>This is why my kid hated the hockey players when she was at BU: the entitlement, totally obnoxious behavior and lots of sexual well the words escape me but she had friends who were treated very badly - and not in a drunken party. I told her it was just as bad, even worse at every Div 1 school - and seemingly at lots of Div 2 schools where athletics is big time. </p>
<p>This is also why I don’t follow college sports. And believe me, I respect athletics plenty and respect the families here with athletes. The system is highly corrupt. I watch pro sports because that is their occupation. </p>
<p>I have lots of stories but one from my relative youth sticks with me. I mention it because it doesn’t involve sexual assault or fighting in public or destroying property. I was sitting at a table with some guys at a really big time school and next to us, their team’s star basketball player was talking about his drug supplier and dealing. He was always described in the press as an outstanding young man.</p>
<p>I was also around professional athletes in my professional capacity. Some were very nice people. Others were such bleeps it’s hard to describe. The kind who wanted you to drive the wife to the airport for them and pick up the girlfriend on the way back. But at least there’s no pretense: this is their job and they get paid for it.</p>
<p>I know that in some parts of this country college football is untouchable. It is to me little more than a plantation system in which vast sums flow to the coaches while the institution runs players through. That at BU hockey players got preferential treatment is no surprise. This is how it is. People can claim “oh, it’s different at x” but it isn’t.</p>
<p>The BU hockey problems make me sick. Is it isolated to BU? No. It is accepted behavior everywhere. This is big business for these schools and they are not willing to crack down on these guys.</p>
<p>BTW, I give credit to BU for investigating this. The news reports come from a BU internal report. The school cares more about academics than sports, which was seen when President Silber cut the football program. Hockey is their big time sport.</p>
<p>I heard it discussed on the radio this afternoon on my way home from work (I have a degree from BU). I had no idea this sort of thing happened there but these years were after my time there. Someone on the radio said that they played hockey there for four years in the 1990s and it was a much tighter ship back then.</p>
<p>A followup article from today’s Boston Globe:
[BU</a> reeling from allegations of hockey team misconduct - News - Boston.com](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2012/09/07/boston-university-reels-from-allegations-hockey-team-misconduct/eOtxf1UfIriPr3tgTtqGEO/story.html]BU”>http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2012/09/07/boston-university-reels-from-allegations-hockey-team-misconduct/eOtxf1UfIriPr3tgTtqGEO/story.html)</p>
<p>I find this comment particularly disturbing:
“He [Coach Parker] can’t control what the players do when he’s not there,” said Lauren Mullins, a BU junior, adding that blame should not be placed entirely on players, either: “I think it’s out of control because the girls let it get out of control.”</p>
<p>^agree. And as the Mother of a 12yo girl, I am horrified that many girls grow up thinking like that.</p>
<p>And in <em>some</em> cases, she’s probably right. Let us not pretend that groupies and the sports scene equivalent don’t exist. In others, she isn’t.</p>
<p>I find it very disturbing that some girls will accept being treated horribly as the price of hanging out with jocks and supposedly “cool” kids. One would hope that they would have more self-respect. This does not, of course, in any way excuse abusive behavior.</p>
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<p>I really don’t follow hockey (or football or basketball) but perhaps this does occur at the other big Boston schools.</p>
<p>I went to college for 2 years in New England and found the hockey players the most obnoxious. Funny, as this was a club sport, not varsity (rest of school was D3). </p>
<p>Transferred to a Midwest school with a nationally ranked basketball team that has one of the highest 4 year graduation rates in the country. Those guys did not get any special treatment except perhaps with scheduling and typically took “real” classes.</p>
<p>I was at BU in the late 70s. I lived at West Campus where the athletes lived. There were plenty of parties (the drinking age was 18) and there were definitely girls who were hockey groupies. I never saw or heard of the severity of incidents like those described in these articles. That’s not necessarily proof they didn’t occur, but I think I would have heard more, at least if it was common. Coach Parker was there when I was there. It’s his program. He has to share the blame.</p>
<p>I have to agree with consolation, plenty of unacceptable behavior all around boys and girls, and also plenty of opportunity for the “boys are bad girls are good, helmet sports are bad, athletes are bad” crowd. There are “bleeps” in every crowd.</p>
<p>momofthreeboys, in this case, as in so many others, it sounds as if it was a pervasive culture, not a few bad apples.</p>
<p>While all parties in this case are over 18, I see some parallels to the far more tragic situation at Penn State. The university had given the athletic program tremendous autonomy in disciplinary and perhaps academic matters. A long time coach claims that he had no knowledge of what was going on with his staff/team members. And now the result is a huge embarrassment to the school. In both cases, the university commissioned an investigation and when the unseamly results were published, apologists try to minimize the damage.</p>
<p>One point of similarity is that Jack Parker is a legend and so was Paterno. This won’t tarnish Parker in the same way.</p>
<p>I’m rather disgusted by the need to refer to groupies. Yes, girls like sports heroes and rich guys and so on but this kind of report was driven by 2 hockey players being charged in completely separate incidents with sexual assault. Not a celebration party. That part of the story gets attention but who really cares if guys shot pucks around while naked? BU has very strict rules about drinking on campus so that is a big deal for the school but that would not be a big deal elsewhere. And no one cares if people have sex. They do care if girls are attacked, if hockey players get drunk and force themselves on girls at parties - which happens. So in your minds girls shouldn’t go to parties because drunk, entitled jocks face no consequences for acting like thugs?</p>
<p>The comments about groupies remind me of the case from AZ reported yesterday. A woman in a bar, a public bar, was assaulted by a drunken cop who flashed his badge to get in and who walked up to her, apparently from behind, and stuck his hand up her skirt and grabbed her. The judge reduced the guy’s sentence and told the woman this wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t been there. Meaning if she hadn’t gone to a bar. Hideous. Think about that.</p>
<p>The investigation came about because two BU hockey players were arrested for sexual assault or rape. One of the cases was dropped because the prosecutor didn’t think there was enough evidence to convict the accused player, but the other player, Corey Trivino, was convicted of sexual assault when he terrorized a (sober) dorm RA in a drunken incident where he twice forced himself into her room, groped her, kissed her, lay on her bed and announced he was staying the night. No one disputes that she was clear in her refusals and he ignored them.</p>
<p>If groupies want to have drunken sex with athletes, that’s one thing. But if athletes think any woman is sexually available to them, as apparently is sometimes the case with BU hockey players, that’s another story.</p>
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Is this directed at my post?? </p>
<p>There is never a excuse for a man to force himself on a woman. Period. Nothing in my post suggested athletes should be allowed to act like thugs and get away with it. I personally find it disgusting and disturbing. There are young women who follow athletes around and sometimes willingly have sex with them. We don’t have to call them groupies, and referring to “groupies” doesn’t mean I’m okay with sexual assault.</p>
<p>I think Lergnom was referring to this:</p>
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<p>I disagree with Ms. Mullins (as I think Lergnom does as well). That is, there are undoubtedly some young women who want to have sex with hockey players. Whatever one may think of those young women, they are not responsible for hockey players who assault other women. That some women make themselves freely available for sex does not mean all women are freely available.</p>
<p>Another point is that the post victory party/orgy took place on campus in Agganis Arena. There must have been some BU staff present to witness this: security or maintenance personnel at least. Did they not report this? If they reported it and there was no follow up, that is another major issue. Or did the school just hand over the Arena keys to the team and let them do as they please in a university building?</p>
<p>I think most of us on this thread don’t care about the victory party as described in the article. Speaking for myself, my concern is entitled hockey players who assault women. The victory party didn’t involve any assaults, as far as I understand.</p>