Punishing Pacman

I used to think Phillip Fulmer was a flaming liberal. His policies toward the deportment of football players at UT seemed more generous than Swedish welfare laws. When guys ran afoul of the police, Phil seemed to adhere to a policy of “four strikes and you might possibly be out, pending further review and clarification of the strike zone.” Otis the Mayberry town drunk got rougher treatment.

But Phil seemed like Dr. Laura compared to the NFL and the Titans in their treatment of Pacman Jones. Until this week. On Tuesday, the league office announced that Jones will have to sit out an entire year without pay, undergo counseling, perform community service work, meet each week with the Titans’ player development dude and (here’s where it gets hard) stay out of further trouble.

Pacman is at once richly deserving and a convenient target for the NFL’s newly converted do-gooders. In handing out this unprecedented punishment (the league previously had no official policy on serial badboyness), Commissioner Roger Goodell was itching to send a message. He hopes Jones and about half of the Cincinnati Bengals (whose Chris Henry was suspended for eight games) will learn that having a persistent nose for trouble won’t be tolerated.

Maybe Pacman should have gotten the message somewhere between his first brush with the authorities, when marijuana turned up in his hotel room (prompting the first and best of Pacman’s long string of “I was just there” quotes), and his recent attempt to “make it rain” at a Vegas strip club. But it also would have helped if Pacman’s employers, including the league office, had sent a more forceful message earlier—say, somewhere between the gold-chain-pulling incident and the spitting-on-the-woman-in-Murfreesboro incident.

For obvious reasons, the most obvious being that he helps them win games, the Titans have been reluctant to suspend Jones for more than a week, much less cut ties with a valuable asset. And since the NFL had long followed a policy of relative tolerance when it came to poor citizenship (Ray Lewis didn’t miss a game after his companions killed two men and drove away with him), the league wasn’t exactly in the strongest position to suddenly go all Coach Carter on anyone.

But when your presence coincides with police involvement, not once but 10 times in just two seasons, and when folks around you not only get spat upon but shot, and when you’re becoming known more as a terrible thug than as a terrific football player, even the see-no-evil NFL will intervene.

“It is important that the NFL be represented consistently by outstanding people as well as great football players, coaches and staff,” said Goodell, sounding almost like Dean Wormer at the disciplinary hearing in Animal House. (Perhaps Pacman is also on double-secret probation.)

For his part, Pac is sounding more than a little like James Cagney at the end of Angels with Dirty Faces, staging an over-the-top sob show of contrition on his way to the electric chair. Pac wants y’all to know he can change, just like Don Imus. The scales have fallen from his eyes.

Maybe they have. But if Pacman seems a little confused about the message the NFL just delivered, I wouldn’t be surprised. And it’s not because he’s a slow learner or an incorrigible offender.

Pacman and other elite athletes have long received a clear message from society: football talent absolves a multitude of sins. As long as you have difference-making ability, it doesn’t make that much difference what you do, short of committing a major felony.

Even before high school, some athletes begin learning that athletic skill can be a get-out-of-practically-everything-free card. College scouts publish rankings of eighth-grade basketball players. Teachers are loath to flunk star athletes. Blue-chip recruits notice the fawning attention they get from colleges.

A recent poll revealed that over 40 percent of our kids think it’s OK for coaches to teach them how to use illegal moves without getting caught. A growing percentage use steroids.

Kids understand all too well what we have taught them: rules are for losers. Character is for those who lack star talent. Punishment is less about bad behavior than bad luck. And a movie such as Coach Carter seems inspiring today because a story about character and accountability is so unusual, so…countercultural.

Perhaps it’s reassuring to consider that our society still sets boundaries for conduct, even for Enron executives and rich pro athletes. Now Pacman knows there’s a line.