PRINTTrouble shooting
In need of an off-court rulebook
MU Athletic Department
February 21, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Not long after Stefhon Hannah, former member of the MU men’s basketball team, left University Hospital in Columbia for his home in Chicago, the news seemed to get redundant. Another altercation, another community letdown and more muddy details to sift through.
Coach Mike Anderson issued suspensions to five players suspected of being involved in the Jan. 27 quarrel outside Athena Nightclub; it’s the fourth suspension he’s overseen since being hired in spring 2006. He issued this statement on Feb. 1: “Fighting, breaking curfew and being someplace our student athletes shouldn’t be. Those are all team rules in my book.”
Missouri Western State University’s coach Tom Smith says he is 100 percent behind Coach Anderson’s actions. “I believe he stood up for his standards, knowing it would cost him a probable win,” he says. “We, too, ask our players to stay out of public bars. In the past, when players have not heeded the rules, we have not hesitated to suspend them.”
Anderson and Smith aren’t the only coaches to risk easy victories and disappointed fans. This year, both Kansas State and San Diego State’s head coaches suspended key players for breaking unspecified team rules.
Meanwhile, the Georgia Bulldogs lost their second-leading scorer after he was arrested for underage possession of alcohol. Two guards for the Connecticut Huskies were suspended for the same offense.
Only the Huskies survived the suspensions unscathed, winning every game since their two players were suspended.Mizzou has fared the worst. Even though the team is back minus Hannah, its record is a mediocre 2-4 since Jan. 27.
But Bob Burchard, coach of the Columbia College men’s basketball team, doesn’t see reason to panic. “I think each of us in (college town) environments, from time to time, have to deal with the same issues,” he says. “We ask our students to make responsible decisions. If they choose not to, I think Coach Anderson and the Big 12 coaches and the rest of us have followed those same types
of scenarios.”
