The Immature Athlete

Athletes can be quite dumb sometimes. Just take Oregon wide receiver Jamere Holland for example. The Ducks senior WR decided to mouth off on Facebook after his teammate Kiki Alonso was kicked off the team for a DUI, just hours after head coach Chip Kelley held a press conference about his team's off the field issues.

Holland decided to use some choice expletives for his head coach as well as some racial slurs we are taught to not say when we are children. But that is exactly what some of these college athletes act like, children.

Here is just some of Holland's Shakespearean literature, "how the f*** you kick kinko off the team...I'm still here, that s*** weak buff cuh could have done damage for the ducks, that s*** is weak, weak a** f***, quote me".

Forget about how immature Holland is, how about using some proper English to show you are part of an academic institution? The more freedom these college athletes have, the more they mess up. How can you be this stupid to put this on Facebook (a public profile as well) and still think you won't be reprimanded?

Well guess what, Holland is now gone. This issue is not foreign to other schools as well. Former Rutgers basketball player JR Inman sounded off on two different Facebook posts this year. Each time Inman called for the firing of head coach Fred Hill Jr. Like Holland, Inman used racial slurs and even went as far as to call some of the coaches homosexuals.

And it doesn't stop at Facebook either for some of these athletes. This past November, three Tennessee football players were charged with attempted armed robbery. Even the Tennessee basketball program had four players arrested in early January on gun and marijuana charges. Urban Meyer's Florida Gators were without star defensive end Carlos Dunlap this season for the SEC title game after he was arrested on DUI charges.

When will these supposed "grown men" start acting their size? A coach should not have to babysit players and coddle them throughout school. College is supposed to be a time for individuals to learn how to make it in the real world. It is obvious some of these athletes just don't get it.

The problem won't be fixed in a day and the solution isn't 24-hour surveillance. Yes, coaches are part of the problem, but you have to believe that some of these head figures are astonished at some of the trouble their players get into.