Halcyon Days

One of the most boneheaded moves ever by a college football team took place last week, and it wasn’t on a football field, but rather the entire campus.

On the morning of Feb. 25, students at Texas A&M University at Commerce who wanted to get their free copy of The East Texan, the campus-published daily newspaper, could not find one on campus. The newspapers were all gone, allegedly taken out of their racks by members of the TAMU-C football team.

It just so happened that the lead story on the front page of that issue concerned the arrest of two of the football players on drug charges.

Bad and embarrassing for the football program as that might have been, even more negative attention came the university’s way by the theft of the newspapers and the subsequent comments from head football coach Guy Morriss when campus police interviewed him after finding videotape showing football players removing the newspapers that morning.

According to the police report, Morriss stated, “I’m proud of my players for doing that. This was the best team-building exercise we have ever done.”

Regardless of how you feel about the media or newspapers in general, this act and Morriss’ apparent sanctioning of it should disturb you to your very core. After all, we’re talking about Commerce, Texas, here, not Chongqing, China. Newspapers, even collegiate ones, have the right to publish arrests made by the taxpayer-funded police departments.

Worse yet, Morriss’ words come dangerously close to implicating that he was the genius behind an act of intentional censorship. According to the same police report, referenced by The East Texan in a report published March 1, his use of derisive remarks such as “that crap” in referring to the The East Texan and its report on the arrests is not exactly scoring him many innocence points.

But to me, a newspaper journalist for 27 years and a former college newspaper reporter and editor, Morriss’ little attitude display in the police investigation just proves something I’ve known for a long time: There are people within every university who regard the collegiate newspaper as nothing more than a student-produced fansheet.

The moment these young men and women have to run a story that doesn’t play the cheerleader for the university or any of its programs (drug arrests, parking issues, yet another tuition hike, etc.) they are branded as some band of traitors to their school. I speak from experience. A lot of other former campus newspapers reporters and editors probably could, too.

Apparently, Morriss is one with no understanding or appreciation for what goes into producing a campus daily newspaper. The East Texan’s March 1 article stated that Morriss asked how taking a publication that is free to Texas A&M-Commerce students could be considered theft. It was explained to him that the newspaper publishes a statement in each edition that the first copy is free to students, and every one after that costs 25 cents.

How or if The East Texan ever receives payment for extra copies is irrelevant here. Those responsible for taking all of the Feb. 25 editions distributed on campus did not do so because they needed floor covering to paint the inside of a house. They did it to prevent other students at the university from seeing an article about an arrest of two football players, and that is an act which is in violation of the First Amendment.

I’ve got a bit more news for Coach Morriss and those involved in the act: It may be a free publication, but I guarantee you it isn’t published for free. The printing press company that cranks out that newspaper isn’t doing so out of the goodness of its employees’ hearts. Oh, and let’s not forget the advertisers in that Feb. 25 edition — some of whom may be financial supporters of the football program — who are probably really ticked off about their paid ads not being seen that day by about 10,000 students, staff and faculty members.

Again going back to the March 1 report in The East Texan, in a meeting with Texas A&M-Commerce President Dan Jones regarding possible disciplinary action for the football players involved in the incident, Jones stated that Morriss said they would suffer the consequences as a team.

Well, I’ve got a unique and educational suggestion to offer.

All of the football players involved in the taking of the newspapers, and Morriss himself, should be given the task of producing one edition of The East Texan.

Perhaps only then, they will all have a better understanding of and appreciation for what the publication’s staff and student-reporters endure several times a week throughout each fall and spring semester, all while carrying a class load to get a college degree and, hopefully, a decent job after college.

Maybe they will learn another important lesson: Headlines are not always going to be happy ones, but the best thing you can do is keep yourself out of them.