Entirely Out of Bounds

Whe

n you're a hot high school prospect being wooed by a college football program, you have to pack a lot of learning into 48 hours. That's the amount of time the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) allows a prospective recruit to stay at any one campus. Administrators and coaches spend the days showing the prospect around. Then the current players take the high schooler out for a college man's night. Sometimes that can mean trouble.

Katie Hnida, a former University of Colorado placekicker and the first female football player in the school's history, got her own indoctrination in a disturbing way as a student in the summer of 2000. Watching television one night at the house of a teammate, she says, she was taken by surprise when he suddenly began to kiss her. She told him, "That's not O.K.," but he ignored her protest, climbed on top of her and, she claims, raped her. Outweighed by 100 lbs., the comparatively little kicker never really had a chance.

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Hnida's nightmare tale, reported last week in SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, was the latest allegation in a growing scandal that has turned the Colorado football program upside down. No fewer than six women have come forward to charge that they were sexually assaulted by players during the five-year tenure of coach Gary Barnett. Other sources in the past few weeks have described a program in which players and recruits are routinely provided with sex and alcohol. Barnett made things worse when he sought to brush aside the Hnida charge. "It was obvious Katie was not very good," he told reporters. "[Players] respect your ability. Katie was not only a girl, she was terrible, O.K.?"

That meatheaded remark earned Barnett a reprimand from university president Elizabeth Hoffman as well as administrative leave until April 30, when a commission formed by the university regents will complete an investigation of all charges. Even before the report is in, it's clear that Colorado and NCAA football as a whole have to rethink how they do business.

It has been a long time since college sports resembled what they were in their sunny, letter-sweater days. Today they are big business, which means big money, which too often means bad behavior. In 2002 the University of Alabama was barred from postseason play for two years for violations that included providing strippers for the enjoyment of recruits. Top running back Lynell Hamilton claims he was offered alcohol, pot and sex at a party while visiting the University of Oregon in 2002. Disgusted, he went to San Diego State instead.

Even by these shabby standards, Colorado has behaved badly, with more than 50 NCAA violations in the four seasons before Barnett's 1999 arrival in Boulder. Barnett was hired to help change that. If the charges are to be believed, he hasn't. A woman who alleged she was raped by a Colorado football player in September 2001 says that when she went to Barnett for help, he offered little sympathy. "She was told that he would back his player 100% if she took this forward in the criminal process," according to a police report released last week. Later that year, three women say they were raped at or after a recruiting party. No charges were filed, though three players pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of providing alcohol to minors.

Why would athletes think they could get away with such behavior? Perhaps because most players assigned to entertain recruits are given few good-conduct rules beyond not to embarrass themselves or the school. Strippers and sex are apparently not something to be embarrassed about. The owner of Hardbodies Entertainment told the Rocky Mountain News it has sent strippers on request to Colorado recruiting parties.

Colorado has not made clear what it will do to clean up the mess. The NCAA is doing what organizations do in such situations — appointing a task force to look into recruiting rules. It's barely a start in fixing a culture that has made an institution out of unsportsmanlike conduct.