Staying out of the limelight

Duke, Northwestern, Harvard and now Yale. Besides having stellar academic reputations, these schools have another thing in common: The names of their athletic teams have been plastered across national headlines, but not because of standout performances.

These teams have instead garnered attention for serious off-field disciplinary issues. Though the Duke men's lacrosse team has been the focus of the vast majority of attention, other teams have faced similar national scrutiny.

Just last week, Yale's starting quarterback and running back were arrested for fighting with three Eli hockey players. In Cambridge, Mass., the captain of the Harvard football team was arrested on domestic abuse charges, and subsequently suspended from the team. The team's quarterback was also suspended for five games for violating unspecified team rules. Northwestern was rocked by scandal when its entire women's soccer team was suspended after photos of hazing were posted on the website badjocks.com.

The same website later posted photos of an initiation involving Princeton cheerleaders. Though that event did not receive the same degree of national attention as the Northwestern soccer players, it was a warning sign that begged the question: What is being done to make sure that Princeton athletes stay on their best behavior?

In spite of the developments at other schools, Athletic Director Gary Walters '67 said that disciplinary policies have not particularly changed recently. Walters says the athletic administration has maintained a proactive approach that relies on promoting ethical values and character building among athletes in the hopes of avoiding similar incidents here.

"We've always approached these issues with eternal vigilance," Walters said in an interview. "I'm the conscience of the organization, and I worry all the time about the academic and personal performance of our student athletes."

For Walters, everything starts with hiring the right coaches — men and women who will view their responsibility as reaching beyond the playing field — because he sees athletics as contributing to the overall educational mission of the University and the personal growth of his athletes.

"We make sure we're hiring educator-coaches," Walters said. "People who can not only teach our student-athletes how to do things right, but also how to do the right thing — ethical decision making."

Walters enforces this ethic through monthly meetings with coaches, where he reminds them of the department's "core values" and "mission." He says he's had the meetings since before the Duke scandal.

The coaches, in turn, are mindful of bringing the right students to Princeton.

"We try to recruit a lot of character when we recruit, and we do a lot of investigation on that," head football coach Roger Hughes said. "We want to make sure we're bringing the right kinds of people here to Princeton, and you know, again, college kids are going to make mistakes just like all people do in their life, we've just got to make sure we help them through it and try to avoid it."

Hughes and his fellow head coaches are the main line through which athletes are educated on proper conduct.

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Men's lacrosse head coach Bill Tierney says the Duke catastrophe simply proved the importance of what coaches have been telling their athletes all along.

"Duke created a great opportunity for all of us as coaches," Tierney said. "It put reality to what we've been saying for years — 95 percent of problems are from alcohol. It reinforced all the things we tell the kids all the time."

While the Duke scandal may have provided an example of possible dangers, Tierney still believes in the present efforts of the administration, which he said provide a consistent response to disciplinary infractions.

"Our athletic administration does a great job, they have an established policy" Tierney said. "The good thing about standards is you can be consistent with everyone, though some coaches are more stringent than those standards."

Those standards are what protect the reputation of the University as a whole and what Walters calls the "brand" that Princeton athletics maintains.

Duke may not know for years the true effect of the lacrosse scandal, but there is no question that, in the national conscience, it will be a university linked with scandal, regardless of the case's eventual outcome. This is something, Walters said, that he is well aware of.

"Anything that we do in the athletic program, especially given the visibility and given that it's public, should not tarnish the reputation of the University." he said. "Our people should be held accountable to anything that damages the reputation, because we work like heck to build up our equity."