College Teams Add Assault Prevention to the Basics They Teach

Asked before the Final Four whether he discussed sexual assault with his team, Krzyzewski said: “We have programs at Duke where you bring in people from the outside and also from the inside, where you not just talk to basketball players, but you talk to all the student-athletes. Not just about that, but about other things. But certainly about that specific thing.”
"That specific thing?" Really ?
He can't even SAY THE WORDS "SEXUAL ASSAULT."
Perhaps HE has something to hide. Very pitiful. No true leadership there.

Again, these are not college teams. They are minor league training grounds for the NBA/NFL. The vast number of these talented circus performers possess an IQ far below academic college standards. It seems Americans still prefer to cling to the illusion of college sports. It's beyond absurd, absolutely hilarious..

These college sports teams are all about athletics and commerce. They are not interested in either academics nor morals except in service of those two primary directives.

The fact that John Calipari is still an NCAA coach is the immoral reality.

Sexual assault is a college problem that transcends athletics and academics.

Shouldn't these athletes know how to treat women before they get to college? Their coach has to tell them? How about their previous coaches, or better yet, someone in their families. Maybe the problem is that they're put on a pedestal from a young age and given a pass for their behavior because they can shoot a ball through a hoop.....

Let me see if I have this right: a college player is given a scholarship, is feted, acclaimed, worshiped (literally) and told how wonderfully good, talented and effective he is; his ego is burnished and polished every day, continually and, to top all that, he is on his way to making millions just because of his height, strength and ability (all natural physical attributes); and we are shocked, SHOCKED when he misbehaves with a mere woman?
We are either down the rabbit hole or living in an alternate universe.
I suppose it all comes down to $$$, so do not be shocked at the denouement.

That which has been laid on schools--teachers, counselors and coaches--from primary on up--rightfully should be inculcated at home: respect for others, accepting the responsibilities and consequences for one's actions, how to treat your fellow creatures (brothers and sisters, parents, pets, nature). In theory, that's a given. In fact, many homes, maybe most homes, are places of dissonance, anger and, too often, violence. What remedy?

Cracking down and enforcing the law on alcohol consumption on campus, in frat and sorority houses, would go a long way in addressing sexual assaults. Administrators should no longer be allowed to turn a blind eye to this epidemic.

Important to note that none of the 3 (current or recently playing) college players mentioned have been found guilty, nor have they admitted guilt.

These coaches are NOT TRAINED in how to talk to players about why not to assault women?? It takes training?? They need a script??? They all have mothers, maybe sisters, probably wives, maybe daughters, female cousins, friends, co-workers. Surely they -- who give wonderful pre and post-game interviews, can come up with the words to say attacking, beating, raping, hurting women is wrong, don't do it!! They instruct their players on everything else -- but they need training to do this?? Oh please, spare us the whining.

So once again, it's ip to schools to teach young men what they should've gleaned at home. And all for the true purpose of Protecting the Brand.

Pitino preaching about how to treat women, this is a joke right? Does this include not cheating on wives or maybe best use of a restaurant booths after closing time with women who VERY obviously have issues? Not sure how drunk you'd have to be!

Sure - a short class is going to make up for 18 years of poor single parenting, undue adulation from authority figures who should know better and a culture of cheating and violence.

This is progress, small steps, but progress nonetheless. When you recall how schools used to try to cover these crimes up, it makes you appreciate the interest the current administration took in the issue. One hopes that the next one will be even more proactive. Ten to fifteen years ago, one wonders if one or more of the suspended players referred to in this article would be playing tonight. It should also be much easier for the younger coaches to communicate to their young men about the seriousness of this issue, although the Alford example from 2002 raises some doubt about that as well.

One would think that by the time a young man enters college he would know something about morality. So many skilled athletes come from poor single parent families and moral behavior is not part of their experience. Family members and clergymen are not doing the job of teaching the meaning of right from wrong and the wildly overpaid coaches are not role models. The very bad behavior will just continue to be pervasive.

Women who don't report to the police are not the problem. We don't report because we know very well that the police are a significant part of the problem: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-officers-who-....

Classes and all that are fine. Students continue to get assaulted, report it, get embarrassed for reporting, become ridiculed and drop the charges. Meanwhile the criminals "apologize, if I have unknowingly hurt someone" and then sign multimillion dollar contracts. It is only when the perpetrators of sexual assaults get heavy jail time without delay that such crimes may begin to subside.

There is an underlying problem which this article on student athlete's misogynistic behavior fails to address. Yes there is reason to believe that these young men have been receiving special treatment, enough so that it can be claimed that they feel special and protected from the norms of behavior towards women. Yes, most males in their late teens are respectful of females but a growing number of them, not just athletes, are deluded into believing that women are merely objects on which to play out some kind of fantasy bereft of normal interaction with the opposite sex. It seems that all these fellows are interested in is the use of a female body totally divorced from the human inside. It's as if a young man is sitting in front of his computer, staring at the screen, and in the privacy and anonymity of his room, and satisfies needs without the bother of developing a relationship. Today, in the ever quickening pace of life, even the one night stand seems perverted into five minutes of sexual relief. Could this scenario, played out uncountable times starting at puberty, be somehow transferred as a form of behavior when dealing with women in the real world? How does a young man learn how to relate to the opposite sex? Could the Internet be part of the reason for such objectifying of the female body? And, more importantly, could it be that student athletes are simply the tip of the proverbial iceberg? This is a problem that needs to be addressed far outside of the locker room.

I applaud any efforts to address the subject of violence toward women, and the Obama administration and the teams who are taking on this issue are to be commended. But let's face it, badly-behaving athletes are the tip of the iceberg here; the egregious behaviors of some of them are multiplied exponentially in American society as a whole.

Learning to treat one's fellow human beings, half or whom are female, with decency is something a child should, ideally, learn at home and from society right from their earliest years. Getting this instruction from a highly-pressured college athletic coach when you're already an adult is probably the least efficient way to do it.

It may be that many families and the culture are no longer up to this task, if they ever were. Why not educate both sexes about how to treat each other, starting in say, kindergarten?

Interesting that we are so overloaded with news stories and social media that I cannot recall if the past story of Rick Pitino and a woman in a bar is fact, fiction, or rumor?

Big time NCAA men's teams dismiss players for sexual assault allegations; the teams are cheered in March Madness. A disturbing video showing racial slurs from frat bros results in immediate closing of the fraternity and expulsion. Is that what it takes - video - to get something done about sexual violence toward our kids on campus?

Madness, indeed.

I'm glad to see that (under pressure from the President) Universities and their athletic programs are finally taking this issue seriously. And it was refreshing to hear a coach say he wanted to help his athletes become decent adult men. Unfortunately, this type of conversation needs to take place far before these young men get to college. There have been too many stories about high school athletes connected to the same issues. By the time they get to college it may be a little too late to correct misogynistic attitudes that have been years in the making.

Universities should also be teaching female students to go to an emergency room as soon as possible, then the police -- not university administrators -- if they are assaulted.

Sexual assault is a crime; universities are institutions of higher learning; police departments (supposedly) enforce the law.

Sexual assault, rampant academic cheating... what a great "educational experience" these big-money "programs" are providing for "amateur" athletes and the bread-and-circuses crowd! But as long as the moolah keeps flowing into the coaches pockets and university coffers from the NCAA and advertising, who cares, right?