Where's The Honor In That?

On Tuesday, it was announced by Brigham Young University that sophomore forward Brandon Davies was being removed from the basketball team for what was called a "violation of the school's honor code" discovered the day before. Now, since BYU is a Mormon university, this could have meant a wide variety of things: too much caffeine, drug use, smoking, not going to church or something much more nefarious. The reason this was so noteworthy is that BYU is currently ranked #3 in the country and on its way to a top seed in the NCAA tournament with Davies as the team's second-best player. For a school like BYU, this kind of athletic success doesn't happen every year and it's a big deal. By suspending Davies the school was dealing itself a very tough blow to their NCAA tournament chances, which was made even more apparent last night when the Cougars were thumped by New Mexico (not exactly a basketball powerhouse). Suddenly they went from a team that could be in the Final Four to a team that most experts weren't picking to make the Sweet Sixteen.

Now, ever since the news broke about Davies dismissal from the team, pundits have been all over TV congratulating the school for sticking to its honor code. "They may have hurt their athletic program, but at least they didn't hurt their principles. In this day and age, that's commendable," the talking heads all said. Almost no one had any sympathy for the kid. After all, Davies is from Provo and knew what he was getting into when he signed up to attend BYU (all students, Mormon or not, are expected to sign an honor code agreement) and he should have known the rules would apply to him just like any other student. And, for the first day of the story I was in that camp. I was especially proud of the University when they wouldn't divulge what it was that specifically caused the violation, coming out only to say that it was nothing criminal. I felt that as long as he didn't break a law, anything Davies did to warrant being removed from school was between him, his team and school officials. And, because I don't want them dating until they are at least 30, I was even thinking about pre-enrolling my imaginary daughters into BYU...

Right up until it was leaked yesterday afternoon that Davies was kicked out because he was found to have to have engaged in premarital sex with his girlfriend. Look, I get that it is a violation - it's not my issue. (Well, it kind of is: unless Davies and his girlfriend were having sex in the school library, the only way school officials could have heard about this was if someone tattled and where, exactly, is the honor in that?) Still, the real spot where I have a problem is with it becoming public knowledge. You want to kick the kid off the basketball team that's fine, but that doesn't give this institution the right to publicly embarrass him or his girlfriend. They should have kept it in-house. At any other school in the country what happens behind closed doors stays behind closed doors. Students get into trouble all the time without having it plastered all over the web. I get that student-athletes have a higher profile and almost anything they do is newsworthy, but that doesn't mean a 20 year-old kid's sex life should be talked about on ESPN.

It's that last part that bugs me the most. BYU is getting an awful lot of play out of how upstanding their university is... almost too much. My suspicion has not been eased by a lot of former BYU students coming out on various platforms today and saying something along the lines of, "95% of the student body commits some kind of honor code violation at some point during their time there. People are rarely kicked out and they certainly aren't kicked out the day after the violation is reported." It sure doesn't seem like the school did much investigating. This makes me wonder if BYU is using this kid as a scapegoat. It's become a big story and I'm sure the wealthy Mormon alumni are quite happy to see the school sticking to its guns. A healthy alumni donation surge can be just as lucrative as an NCAA tournament run. It's a tough time to get endowments and this wouldn't be the first time a college has been extra-strict with a student-athlete as a way to send a message. I'm just left to wonder if publicly humiliating someone as a way to make yourself look better is mentioned anywhere in the school's honor code.