Scrutiny of off-field behavior increases at Mizzou

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Ask any coach, athletic director or big-time booster: in college sports, rankings matter.

Look no further than Missouri, where the success of a football team that won a school-record 12 games and finished last season ranked No. 4 has catapulted the program among the nation's elite.

The baseball team is ranked fourth this week, and broad success in other sports, from wrestling and diving to women's soccer, has the school ranked 30th nationally in the Directors' Cup, which tracks overall athletic excellence.

There's even a poll where Missouri is ranked first among all Division I schools — but good luck finding anyone on campus bragging about that particular honor.

A Web site that tracks player arrests and other forms of misconduct by college athletes has the Tigers sitting at No. 1, thanks to the arrests of six reserve football players in separate incidents since September and the arrests of five men's basketball players — and the shooting of a sixth — in the past 14 months.

Clearly, winning the Fullmer Cup (named after a former Tennessee football coach who became known for his team's off-field problems) isn't among athletic director Mike Alden's goals.

"Anytime you have off-the-field issues, no matter what the success is on the field, it always brings concern," he said. "You're always trying to make sure that your kids are putting themselves in the right situations, and making the right decisions."

To be sure, context is important when discussing college athletes who get in trouble. For one, students who otherwise would receive little attention for their missteps if they didn't wear the Mizzou jersey instead see their mug shots on the evening news.

"The scrutiny is higher, and they're held to higher standards," Alden said.

The mistakes sometimes can be chalked up to youth. Four of the six football players who faced recent legal troubles were in their first or second year of college. Two of those players — defensive lineman John Stull and linebacker Marquis Booker — were kicked off the team after their brushes with the law.

Missouri football coach Gary Pinkel, who won't discuss individual disciplinary measures, summed up his philosophy of building a team — and by extension minimizing the phone calls from police officers or players behind bars — at an appearance before boosters Monday.

"We're constantly working on building relationships," he told Tiger Quarterback Club members. "The young players are starting to figure out how a Missouri player should act."

If the boosters' questions to Pinkel and Alden are any indication, die-hard fans don't seem too concerned about the danger of Missouri football and basketball becoming better known for player misconduct than on-field performance.

The nearly 200 boosters at the luncheon instead asked about the 2008 season schedule, a rash of parking tickets issued by campus police at the spring football game and the pregame musical selections at Faurot Field.

Football players in particular "know ahead of time that if they get in trouble, they're going to pay the penalty — even if it means their careers are through," said Chuck Everitt, a Columbia pet store owner and Tiger Quarterback Club president.

And even the toughest disciplinarian can't control his players' every move, Everitt added.

"You just do the best you can," he said. "The coaches can't live with them 24 hours a day. But they can certainly take action."