So two freshmen on the Oklahoma Sooners football team were arrested early Saturday morning just after 2AM. One of them, Kenny Stills, was "driving under the influence of alcohol under 21". His teammate, Tony Jefferson, was arrested for "interfering with the process", or, to put it another way, not listening to the officers commands.
The Oklahoma athletic department has said that they will handle this internally. Clearly there will have to be some type of punishment, maybe involving game suspensions for next season. Some may say that they are getting a break because they are college athletes, and this is not a serious enough punishment considering that they could easily have killed someone. (Interfering with officers in the process of arresting someone, however, doesn't sound like a smart thing to do, but I'll wait for more details on that part of the story.)
However, it is worth considering that on a different level, college athletes get punished more than an average college student. An average college student who gets arrested doesn't have their names printed in national news stories on ESPN and have their mugshot posted all over the Internet for everyone to see. Kenny Stills and Tony Jefferson will now have to explain this years from now when they apply for jobs and those companies run their Google searches and find these stories.
This was a very bad decision, but at the same time, these are two relatively young boys. Hopefully they will learn from their mistakes, and others can learn some lessons from this as well, such as:
OKBlitz.com: Oklahoma's Kenny Stills, Tony Jefferson Arrested
The Oklahoma athletic department has said that they will handle this internally. Clearly there will have to be some type of punishment, maybe involving game suspensions for next season. Some may say that they are getting a break because they are college athletes, and this is not a serious enough punishment considering that they could easily have killed someone. (Interfering with officers in the process of arresting someone, however, doesn't sound like a smart thing to do, but I'll wait for more details on that part of the story.)
However, it is worth considering that on a different level, college athletes get punished more than an average college student. An average college student who gets arrested doesn't have their names printed in national news stories on ESPN and have their mugshot posted all over the Internet for everyone to see. Kenny Stills and Tony Jefferson will now have to explain this years from now when they apply for jobs and those companies run their Google searches and find these stories.
This was a very bad decision, but at the same time, these are two relatively young boys. Hopefully they will learn from their mistakes, and others can learn some lessons from this as well, such as:
- If you're under 21, don't drink.
- If you are old enough to drink, DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE. If you need a ride home, call a cab.
- If your friend is about to be arrested for DUI, don't do anything stupid, or you'll get arrested too.
OKBlitz.com: Oklahoma's Kenny Stills, Tony Jefferson Arrested
Moonlighting as a blogger to pursue my interest and enjoyment of sports. Former high school and Division I athlete (now a "retired" family man) that loves watching and discussing all sports. Follow me on Twitter (@HoldoutSports) and like Holdout Sports on Facebook.
