Our theme today is the way our universities’ love of football leads them astray, breaks their hearts, and damn near kills their students.

Mad about the boys, some universities import major league bruisers to campus, encourage their violent tendencies (Sign in the football players’ cafeteria at the University of Oregon: EAT YOUR ENEMIES), and even teach them to attack people as a team.

Of course the attack-objects the universities have in mind are opposing players, but ol’ UD has been following university football long enough to know that some players – some groups of players – have vision issues and cannot distinguish between on-field behemoths and skinny twerpy fellow students. If they’ve got a violent coach (we read about one of these about every two weeks) these players are going to be that much more inclined to just go ahead and beat the shit, en masse, out of everybody.

I mean, take a notorious head case coach like Mike Leach. (I’m not gonna rehearse his disgusting history of coaching violence here cuz I ain’t got the stomach for it. Put MIKE LEACH in my search engine and go to town.) Apparently six or more of his Washington State University players last Saturday started throwing lit fireworks at fellow WSU students at a party, and when some students objected, Mike’s guys – teamwork again! – sent all their jawbones flying and brains concussing (Leach himself has quite the history with player concussions).

SING IT WITH ME!!

Too many broken jaws have fallen on the pavement
Too many concussed sons have sued the school for millions
You lay your bets and then you pay the price
The things we do for love, the things we do for love.

They interviewed the father of one of the injured.

[A]fter police make an arrest, he intends to file criminal and civil charges against the individuals responsible for his son’s injuries.

“It’s obviously an unfortunate event. The irony is that my son has always been a WSU football fan. He ran the field when they beat Oregon last year,” Rodriguez said. “When somebody is down on the ground and you kick them in the face, that’s a huge character flaw and it shouldn’t be tolerated by any football program.”

Tolerated? The capacity to kick people in the face when they’re lying unconscious because you sucker punched them is … well, it’s Job #1 at big-time university football, ain’t it? I mean, ain’t that just the kind of guy you’re after when you’re recruiting? Do you think Nebraska had no inkling of psycho Richie Incognito’s … tendencies? They recruited him for them.

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So. Let’s compare pricing. UD‘s friend John sends her word that the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (already a shining example of what football can do for your school) is going to have to pay about a million dollars in damages and expenses because of their most recently concussed student … and to make things worse, the four guys involved had to sit out one game!

What will WSU – which is willing to pay scary Mike Leach millions and can have no qualms about peeling off more bills on behalf of his violent squad – what will WSU have to choke up to make this go away while keeping the firecracker guys on the field? We’re told at least six players (the WSU newspaper says “between five and twelve“) were involved in one way or another, and there’s also apparently lots of video of the event available to police and lawyers … I’m gonna say about a million even for each of the players, so let’s say seven million… Then there’s WSU’s own attorney fees… And the humongous raise Leach is going to demand for having recruited such amazing players… so make that another two million directly arising from these events…

UD‘s going to predict that WSU will spend another few million on a radical revision of its student orientation program. WSU cannot help but have noticed that at certain other football schools students do not sue when players fuck them up. These students understand that physical injury is part of the price you pay for a really strong football program. Whether rapees or concussees, they understand that you must sacrifice for the team. At schools like WSU, where the word has not yet gotten through, change must start with new students. As part of their introduction to the culture of the school, and to the expectations the school has of them, they need to meet with students from violence-tolerant schools to understand the basis of tolerance, and ultimately to sign pledges releasing their university from any liability that might arise from a player rampage.

UD will close with the most important question of all: If seven of your football players – and maybe some of your best football players – have been suspended from play, what effect will this have on your win/loss ratio?

Here’s what UD has learned about this issue from prior cases. At its worst, a multi-player setback can indeed allow you to lose games. But it’s just as likely to inspire the sort of solidarity and sympathy that make your remaining guys play all the more fiercely.

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Update: The real fun is when the details come out!

For every weapon used, add a hundred thou to Coach Leach’s raise this year.

So – fireworks, yes. But here’s another:

[T]he group had been causing trouble – prying off pieces of a wooden railing…

You gotta figure they used those pried-off slabs as blunt objects as they beat the Washington State University students senseless. Another hundred thou for Leach.

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From the comments section on one of a thousand articles about WSU’s football players:

So why don’t your players go six on one against another college kid who was just asking them to not throw fireworks at people…

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This incident spells nothing but trouble for the WSU football program. Not only is it likely that players will be criminally charged for the assaults, it is also likely that other players will be called as witnesses regarding what led up to the assaults and who participated in inflicting the injuries. This can only create turmoil within the program, disrupt team unity, and divide loyalties. A poisonous atmosphere that will make coaching the team more difficult and success on the field more problematic.

[Yes, but UD is optimistic that the lawyer for the player who sucker-punched a student then repeatedly kicked his head while he was unconscious will successfully argue self-defense. Those Washington State juries do love their football.]

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[Still, some of the locals do have a solid sense of justice.]

Whoever kicked the kid on the growned and who ever broke the kids jaw should probably be kicked off the team.

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Hopefully we’ll see a reprise of Leach’s punishment tactic of locking players in closets.

[Yes, Leach is famous for having done that. The player was concussed at the time.]

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Leach is famous for recruiting that kind of player.

[Yup. Also famous for doing that.]

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UD thanks John.