In the early morning on Oct. 31, Ohio State’s 20-year-old starting quarterback, J.T. Barrett, was stopped at a police checkpoint and was arrested for operating a vehicle while intoxicated. He is suspended for one game: Ohio State’s Nov. 7 contest against Minnesota.
How does one quantify the offense of drunk driving with a specific number of football games? Drunk driving resulted in the deaths of 10,076 Americans in 2013 –mothers, fathers, sons and daughters were killed and their families were robbed of their lives. It’s impossible to decide how many college football games should be taken away from a player to punish that kind of irresponsible risk. However, it’s quite clear that J.T. Barrett’s one-game suspension is woefully inadequate, and the situation is simply another example of the influence college football celebrity has over the judicial process at our country’s major universities.
Those who made the decision to suspend Barrett for only one game had all the incentive in the world to put J.T. Barrett back on the field. Urban Meyer, as head coach, has a primary responsibility to win games – to keep his starting quarterback out of more games than the one against lowly Minnesota is to threaten his job security. And to think the Athletic Director, Gene Smith, who directly benefits from the success of the athletic department, would overrule Meyer is ridiculous—the success of the athletic department (largely the football team) has elevated Smith to vice president of the University and a nearly seven figure salary.
What J.T. Barrett did was childish, irresponsible, and emblematic of a huge problem in our society – a lack of concern for the wellbeing of others. But his actions aren’t the major problem here; the power structures that allow people to make these kind of mistakes and walk away unscathed simply because of their athletic prowess. This season, officials at Oklahoma State, Arkansas, and Pitt have imposed similar one-game suspensions to their players who are arrested for DUI (3, 4, 5). The well-publicized investigation of the alleged sexual assault by Jameis Winston in Tallahassee resulted in allegations of tampering, administration favoritism, and other benefits that seem to come with being a famous college football player. Coaches and athletic directors all over the country seem more interested in doing the bare minimum to save face than accurately punishing and teaching players that make mistakes.
These football programs usually have some variation of the mission statement “to shape our players into better people, students and athletes – in that order.” However, there is no way they can claim to be doing this when it’s clear that winning football games comes before all else – including the safety of others. J.T. Barrett is receiving a lot of attention because he is the starting quarterback for the defending national champions, but Ohio State isn’t the only place this happens. College football programs need to be held more accountable for the actions of their players, or these things will continue to happen.
Kyle Simpson is a junior majoring in biology. His column runs weekly.
