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You didn't say I couldn't...

Writer's picture: Jim KnoedelJim Knoedel

Every track team has guidelines, rules regarding do's and don'ts athletes are expected to follow, each explained at team meetings that kick off the new year. Typical things - like stay out of bars around campus or not cheating on tests or papers, behaviors that are obviously unacceptable.


But there are also many that weren't specifically included, simply because I couldn't anticipate that behavior or had never dealt with such a thing before. Incidents that years later continue to make for a good story over beers.


I never had a team rule that explicitly stated athletes shouldn't get arrested - and yet two did over thirty-five years of college coaching. Not surprisingly they involved alcohol. And both were on our spring break - one incident in Gainesville Fl and the other in Auburn AL.


The urge to leave each in the local lockup was hard to resist.


It's disconcerting to get a call in the middle of the night, reaching for a hotel phone that wakes you from a deep slumber, knowing whatever it is, it can't be good. It never is. But I guess I gained knowledge that couldn't be obtained any other way.


I learned that local law enforcement typically requires a cash bond to release said offender from jail - and in some states (Alabama) you must be a resident in order to post the bail. It's amazing what you become versed on as a college track coach - information not taught at any TF clinic.


Even worse (hmm...well) to have someone pounding on your door at 2:21am, tipping my head and peeking through the opening in boxers and a t-shirt, a police officer standing beside a male and female on your team, explaining he caught the them in flagrante delicto (look it up) at a park across the street from the hotel.


But you never said we couldn't...


Other than NO ALCOHOL, I didn't have specific guidelines regarding appropriate and inappropriate activities during an official or unofficial recruiting visit. My mantra was use your good sense - don't do anything that is iffy. Keep it within bounds.


So when athletes on the team came up with this idea for a recruiting visit the bells and whistles should have gone off. The guys located a fake ID for a 17-year old HS runner, the plan to take him to an Indiana (can you believe you only have to be 18?) strip club, providing the recruit with cash for a "special dance" that evening, well...WTF! That was way out of bounds. And even out of the state!


I guarantee I didn't learn about this until years later.

Yet I probably shouldn't have been so surprised about the arrests...or the ahem...it's not as if my generation was innocent. That I hadn't walked into a bedroom where my college roommate and a female were...well they were both making lots of noise.


Or that my teammate was arrested for streaking through a house party, sprinting out the front door in front of a police car (amazing timing!) yet eluding them for more than a mile with his speed. But eventually he was forced to sit naked in the back of the cruisier (yuk) on the way to jail after they spotted him hiding behind a bush. He didn't blend into the background.


Cops told coach Cretzmeyer that they couldn't have caught my teammate if he'd just continued running - that his conditioning far exceeded their ability to coral him. The "perp" was bailed out of jail early Sunday morning, Cretz chalking it up to youthful enthusiasm, concocting a pithy one-liner for Monday's Daily Iowan newspaper.


"I just wish he had run that hard at our meet on Saturday!"


After all these experiences, maybe I should have added "no bail money provided" to the list of rules but I didn't want to nourish demented behavior by my athletes. They would have only taken it as a challenge.


Plus, we would probably have gotten in trouble with the athletic director if he found out we posted a cash bond for athletes in years past - it's probably an NCAA violation!

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