Western Carolina University stood at a crossroads a couple of weeks ago, and it had to choose which way to go. The path it chose, and the message officials sent out across the region, was a reassuring one — the university will stand for integrity. Chancellor John Bardo and the administration did not flinch when striking the often controversial balance between academic mission and athletic success.

WCU Football Coach Bill Bleil was reassigned after at least 10 incidents of players and coaches running afoul of the law. The worst of these was a second-degree murder charge filed against a football player earlier after a shooting at a local nightclub.

For better or worse, scholarship athletes are like elite employees at a large company. They get free tuition, a place to live, even better food than the average student. For all this — and it is a great deal, even with the commitment the student-athletes must make — they are expected to play hard, make at least mediocre grades, and act like decent, respectable citizens. Unfortunately, too many of the people at WCU who were granted this special chance did not live up to their part of the deal.

In fact, Toren Gordon, the fullback charged with second-degree murder, reportedly had shown a handgun to someone in a dorm room and had been seen carrying the weapon at a Cullowhee restaurant. Other football players were busted for a number of offenses, including assault. An assistant coach was busted for drinking and driving and assault.

And so Bleil, the man who brought them all to Cullowhee, who gave the final OK for the university to commit its resources to educating these young men, lost his job.

Most who have followed Bleil’s plight say he is a good coach and a good person. But those characteristics don’t change the fact that he is the only one who can take the fall for the problems that have occurred.

Whether it is the Duke University basketball team or the WCU football squad, the coach gets the accolades for success and the black eye for failures. If the team succeeds, the coach will be rewarded. They will get better pay, perhaps a TV or radio show, and at large schools contracts that will make them rich. A coach of a major collegiate sport — even at a small school like WCU — is treated differently from other professors and employees. Bleil’s salary was more than $80,000 a year, which probably made him one of the highest paid faculty members at the university.

Bleil and other coaches aren’t expected to babysit the young athletes they recruit. But the only alternative to firing coaches when a pattern of bad behavior develops is to do nothing, to preach good intentions but take no action. The fact that Bleil was just named Southern Conference Coach of the Year is irrelevant. Surely no one can argue that winning games and having a successful football program is more important than the larger goal of a university to educate and enlighten thousands of students. Whether undefeated or 1-10, the record means nothing.

Western Carolina University took a tough stand on a controversial issue, and it came down on the only side any reasonable person should consider right.

 

Back to Top
The Smoky Mountain News