Athletes, alcohol and weekends: Unhealthy Mix

"One of the most dangerous combinations in the world,'' Smith said. "College kids, alcohol and a weekend.''

Fifteen years ago this week, Smith, then a new member of Tennessee's football team, broke another student's jaw at a keg party in Fort Sanders.

While it was Smith's one and only visit to the police blotter, it wasn't an aberration in the big scheme of the big enterprise that is college athletics.

Of all segments of the population, young males are at the greatest risk to get in trouble.

And when they are athletes, it's news.

"Most of us get to grow and make mistakes in relative obscurity,'' said Jeff O'Brien of the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University in Boston. "We're not on ESPN.''

As the title suggests, Northeastern's program relates sports to the greater context of society.

One of the themes, O'Brien said, is "how we, as a culture, socialize boys to become men.

"There are continual threads of toughness and not backing down.

"A lot of what happens is young men posturing a toughness role.''

To their chagrin, the Vols have been on ESPN and in every other media outlet this spring as offthe-field incidents tallied up.

In the past 14 months, 11 UT football players have been either arrested or issued citations. At least half of the incidents involved aggressive behavior.

Last month, four players -- quarterback Brent Schaeffer, receiver Bret Smith, defensive end Robert Ayers and linebacker Jarod Mayo -- were arrested the same week in two separate incidents involving fighting.

Another player, defensive tackle Tony McDaniel, awaits a grand jury on a felony assault charge resulting from a campus pick-up basketball game.

The program, in some quarters, has been portrayed as out of control. UT coach Phillip Fulmer has been called out for either recruiting bad characters, running a loose ship or both.

Most of those close to the program, however, disagree.

Tim Rogers is UT's vice-chancellor for student affairs. Campus disciplinary issues fall in his realm.

He said he isn't aware of any statistics comparing the rate of infractions for athletes to that of the student body.

"I have to applaud coach Fulmer,'' Rogers said. "He's taken solid action in the past.''

Fulmer has dismissed three players since the start of last season.

Brandon Johnson and Chris Heath were booted last fall for firing a handgun, although not, apparently, at anybody. James Banks was gone after an accumulation of infractions.

Bret Smith, Ayers and McDaniel are suspended. Schaeffer is no longer on the team and will transfer.

Chuck Smith, meanwhile, wonders what concerns UT fans the most about all of the above.

"They're not worried about the player,'' he said. "They're worried about what the player can do for our favorite team.

"But when kids get in trouble, it's way bigger than, 'Is he going to be ready for the football season?' ''

Preventing trouble, especially trouble involving violence, is a vexing problem.

David Moon, like Smith, is an ex-Vol who is dismayed at the criticism to which the program and Fulmer have been subjected.

"It's really difficult,'' said Moon, an offensive lineman who lettered in 1984, "for large young men who, in essence, get paid to break things and hurt people on Saturday afternoons to differentiate between their pretend life and real life.

"That was a line I had to learn not to cross. I had anger management issues that I'm not real proud of.''

The athletic department goes to great lengths to educate the players how to handle such issues.

One example, in fact, was inviting Northeastern's O'Brien and his Mentors in Violence Prevention program to campus.

O'Brien tries to present alternative choices to handling volatile situations, especially ones that involve the campus-life staples of alcohol, females and malebonding dynamics such as teams and fraternities.

"It's a toxic mix,'' said O'Brien.

MVP visited UT in February of 2004. The subsequent incidents underscore how persistent the struggle is.

"It's not a Tennessee problem,'' said Chuck Smith. "It's a youth problem.''

Search the Internet. Young male athletes get arrested at South Carolina, at Georgia, at Louisiana Tech, at Florida International, at Newberry College. The list runs on and on, at every level of competition.

Smith, who sits on UT's Athletics Board, challenges the public to do a better policing job than Fulmer and the athletic department.

"Who are we kidding?" said Smith. "This is the regular world. You are not going to govern these guys by a ball-and-chain mentality.

"We'll just get us a task force of Vol fans to follow these guys around 365 days a year.

"It ain't going to happen. You don't even do that for your own kids.''

Once an incident has happened, the next dilemma is how to react to it.

Moon said it would be an injustice not to treat each case on its own merits, regardless of public opinion.

He speaks from the perspective of a player who on more than one occasion could have been dismissed from the team. Instead, he said he received less public penalties that he judged both severe and effective.

"You can't pass judgment on coach Fulmer based on what he does or doesn't do because you don't know all the facts,'' said Moon.

"He has got to have leeway. My situation was different than somebody right next to me.''

Fulmer and his coaches become, in essence, surrogate parents. And like a parent, Fulmer relishes seeing a player learn a lesson from trouble and get back on track.

"Off the top of my head the other night,'' Fulmer said, "I counted up 47 guys who had some kind of issues that we had gotten through and they're out doing really well.

"I counted 22 guys on the other side who couldn't listen and didn't remain in the program.

"It's easy to fire 'em, but you've invested in a person's life when you recruit them. You're going to support them every way that you can, within reason.''

Within reason. It can be a tough call.

Smith said the support he received after his 1990 arrest saved his future.

"I'm the best example in Tennessee history,'' he said. "I did the same thing Brent Schaeffer did, except I broke a kid's jaw.

"The love and support they all gave me that day and time, they gave me a chance. I haven't been in trouble since I left that campus.''

Smith played in nine years the NFL, retiring in 2001. He has been recognized for his community work in Atlanta, where he is broadcasting.

Smith was appointed to the UT Athletics Board in 2003. He has also been a significant donor.

"The Chuck Smith Players Lounge is coming soon,'' he said.

Moon likewise claims himself as a successful secondchance project. He said dismissal would have been the least productive penalty for his transgressions.

Today, he runs a money-management firm. He has served in a variety of civic capacities, including the vice-chairmanship of the Knoxville Zoo.

"If I had been removed from what was my family,'' he said, "my life and the lives of an awful lot of other people would have been affected negatively.

"And I don't think anybody's life would have been affected positively.''

Not every story has a happy ending. As in all walks of life, some UT athletes will continue to find trouble.

Jamal Lewis is currently squeezing in a four-month prison sentence between NFL seasons. Ex-Vols Dwayne Goodrich and Leonard Little have been involved in drinking-and-driving fatalities.

Meanwhile, every night that Fulmer's phone doesn't ring is one small victory.

But eventually, that phone will ring, when you're a surrogate parent for 100 young men. In the heat of the moment at a party, on The Strip, in an apartment, a bad decision will get made.

There will be a new set of circumstances to be weighed, consequences to be determined. It's been going on since Cain and Abel.

"If we can work with one and save him,'' Fulmer said, "yeah, I'm guilty of that.''