COMMENTARY

By Steve Wilstein

updated 7:17 p.m. ET Feb. 21, 2004

On a college campus last fall, sports sociologist Richard Lapchick was speaking about ethics to all of the school’s athletes when suddenly a group of men in the audience walked out.

“I was told with some embarrassment afterward,” Lapchick said, “that the athletes were going to a lavish reception being hosted by the group of women students on that campus who ’entertain’ — the ’entertain’ was kind of winked at and in quotes — this particular team on a regular basis.”

Lapchick, who frequently speaks on campuses about diversity, ethics and violence prevention, declined to identify the school other than to say it was a NCAA Division I-A university. But the phenomenon led him to ask around at other schools about hostess groups.

“The feedback you get is that this is not an unusual situation,” Lapchick told The Associated Press. “Colleges have allowed a kind of culture to exist where they’re using sex as a vehicle. Formally or informally, they’re creating a climate that sets in motion a feeling of license on the part of players at that school that they can have sex with women against their will.”

Seven women have alleged that they were raped by Colorado football players or recruits in various incidents since 1997, and the university is investigating whether sex was used as a recruiting tool with player-hosted visits to strip clubs and the hiring of escorts.

NCAA president Myles Brand has ordered a task force to examine recruiting rules and define “inappropriate” activities. Should high school recruits be restricted from attending parties with players or given early curfews?

“Frankly, right now I’m seriously considering not keeping a kid overnight next year,” Colorado coach Gary Barnett told the AP. “With all the problems getting played out the way they do, maybe you’re just better off not taking any risk. Is that the right thing? Probably not. Is it the safest? Yes it is.”

Barnett was placed on paid administrative leave a few days ago for the duration of the school’s investigation but said he expects to be exonerated and reinstated.

“Everything that we’re being accused of, I absolutely know without any shadow of a doubt that none of it’s happened,” he said.

Barnett acknowledged that some players took recruits to a strip club and said they were immediately disciplined for it. Though critics claim coaches know what’s going on with recruits, or should know, Barnett insisted that he and his coaches didn’t avoid looking too closely.

“A blind eye? No. Wink at them? No,” Barnett said. “We would say our kids are going out to experience the college campus for a night. Do we know what goes on on campuses specifically? No. Generally? Yes.”

Barnett said allegations that an escort service was hired for recruits was “absolutely not true.” He claimed his program is “the farthest along of anybody” in college sports in changing the culture of drinking among players and warning them about the consequences of sexual assault and rape.

Aside from setting written standards of behavior and enforcing a 1 a.m. curfew, he has brought in outside counselors each year for workshops with the players on sexual harassment, diversity and other issues.

Lapchick, director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida and founder of the “Mentors in Violence Prevention” program that has worked with 115 college athletic departments, said it is estimated that one out of seven female college students is sexually assaulted on campuses.

“I really don’t believe that athletes are disproportionately involved,” he said. “They’re part of a huge problem in our country. And where a climate of a low regard for women is created, as it appears to have been created at Colorado, then it’s kind of open season.”

Colorado is hardly the only school at which sex and recruiting have been linked.

At Brigham Young University in January, police looked into allegations that a sex crime occurred at a late-night party for Cougars recruits at a house shared by three football players. No charges were filed.

Several Minnesota players took top offensive line recruit Lydon Murtha to a strip club during a campus visit in December. Other recruits later said they were also taken to the strip club and given alcohol.

Running back Lynell Hamilton said he was taken to parties at Oregon in 2002 and offered alcohol, marijuana and sex, an experience that led him to sign with San Diego State.

“It’s hard to have a lockup, then you have players who want to go out even more,” Colorado State quarterback Bradlee Van Pelt said at the NFL combine workouts in Indianapolis. “They want to party, so if you lock them down, they’re going to say, ’I don’t want to come to school here.”’

Despite the notoriety at certain schools, Leigh Steinberg, a sports agent who represents many of the top players in the NFL, doubts that sex is a common part of the college recruiting process.

“I ask my clients about recruiting and I just haven’t heard these stories,” Steinberg said. “And it’s not like they won’t tell you. I hear some amazing stories from players about their exploits. But I haven’t heard a ton at that level.

“Years ago, I heard stories that there occasionally would be coaches who might hire prostitutes, but that was 20 years ago. My sense is that with all the scrutiny now that would be the diciest thing to do.”

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