Blog Entry

Kudos to BYU

Posted on: March 3, 2011 12:35 pm

The basketball world is abuz  with the news that frontrunner BYU has dismissed Brandon Davies from its men's basketball program - and just a few weeks before the Madness hits, at that. Most people are even more shocked that there is even talk of dismissing him from the school.

Now, I'm not a Mormon, but there are many things which they stand for that I am happy to applaud, especially in this day and age. I remember a number of years ago when one of their basketball teams, don't remember if it was the men's or women's, refused to play on a Sunday. Many thought it was weird - I applauded that someone was standing up for what they believed.

Now, back to Davies. He chose to go to BYU. I don't know about his recruitment, but I suspect someone of his caliber had many scholarship offers. Let me repeat again, he chose to go to a school which still has an honor code. Perhaps that is an anachronism in this day and age. I suggest the the state of higher education would be better off if more schools had one and actually made students adhere to it.

 So what if most college students engage in pre-marital sex. Davies chose to go to a school affiliated with a particular religion, which expects everyone on it scampus to adhere to its code. I strongly suspect that the code was explained to Davies and his parents during freshmen orientation; I also suspect the ramifications of viuolating the code were also explained.

Many schools, even with such a code, would be very tempted to not take any action until after the Tournament. Not BYU, it has chosen to actually behave as it believes. How refreshing. How much better all sports would be if people, institutions, teams, etc. did that.

As for Davies, his life will go on. In today's world, this will not even be a blip on his basketball career. It is more likely to be the butt of jokes and elbowing with his future teams and coaches. May, just maybe, he will have learned something from this - there are consequences to your actions. Again, unfortunately, all too many young people, athletes or not, are not learning that in life any more. To paraphrase my hubby, you either learn the necessary lessons in life early, or you'll learn them later, but the consequences of learning later are much harsher.

Kudos to BYU - I'll be pulling for you in the Tournament.
