Something is afoul in the state of Washington State University. In particular, a stench wafts from the direction of Cougar Athletics.

The evidence suggests extraordinary systemic and cultural issues in the WSU football program.

The trail of blood most recently leads from a July 23 assault reported by Evergreen reporter Rebecca White.

“Police have confirmed between five and twelve football players were involved in a possible felony assault at a party over the weekend,” White wrote in a July 25 Evergreen report.

Let’s break that statement down. On the low end, a small group of football players allegedly committed a serious crime. On the high end, enough players to make an entire offensive or defensive line allegedly participated in felony assault that landed two WSU students in the hospital.

One of the victims, Alex Rodriguez, a 21-year-old WSU psychology major, suffered a broken jaw and had full reconstructive surgery. Another student suffered a concussion.

Brian Wolf, associate professor of sociology at the University of Idaho, said in an email that there’s a connection between sports and violence, albeit a complex one.

“Men are committing violence against women and other men in all segments of society,” wrote Wolf. “There are aspects of sport that seem to amplify destructive aspects of masculine identity.”

Enter esteemed WSU football coach Mike Leach: “The first couple of stories published in the media were a ridiculously inaccurate reflection of the events that night,” Leach told Seattle Times reporter Stefanie Loh.

How would you know, Coach, if you were not at the fight?

Shockingly – or maybe un-shockingly – enough this is not the first instance of reported WSU football transgressions. On August 18, 2015, Seattle Times reporter Mike Rosenberg tweeted an analysis of figures from ArrestNation.com in which WSU ranked no. 1 in football arrests for the last five years at 31 arrests. Loh also reported two days later that 23 of these 31 arrests took place after Leach became coach.

OutKick the Coverage, an online football magazine, cited Rosenberg with a graphic demonstrating the ratio of arrests to wins in the five years preceding the August 18 article. For 31 arrests, WSU had won only 18 games. That includes games won since November 2011, when Leach became coach.

In Loh’s breakdown of the 23 arrests since Leach became coach, 20 instances included criminal behavior with more than one perpetrator. Most of these instances were related to assault, illegal alcohol possession or driving-related offenses.

In the grand scheme of potential criminal behavior, these are not the worst crimes. However, the trends speak to two possibilities. One, football players are simply the dumb jocks we think they are and do stupid things – this is clearly not the case: at base level, most football players are committed athletes and students intent on improving the WSU brand and getting an education.

The other is more sinister: football players are a part of a sheltered athletic culture that they assume will ultimately protect them from legal repercussions if they mess up. This explanation would indicate a larger cultural pathology implicating the highest levels of the WSU Athletic Department.

Now, even if these players were immediately removed from the team for these alleged offenses, a larger lack of discipline is still at play here. Players seem to lack the discipline to control their behavior at all times off the field, which also translates to a lack of discipline on the field.

Coach Leach’s cardinal rules for his players are these: don’t abuse women, don’t use illegal drugs and don’t steal. This list should grow if WSU football wishes to demonstrate the discipline it so desperately needs.

If nothing more, we should add the Eleventh Commandment, ‘Thou shalt not physically assault a fellow Coug.’

Now, this may seem grossly unfair of me to pass off all this responsibility on Coach Leach. However, sports psychologists suggest that a coach strongly drives the development of team culture.

Dr. Jim Taylor, adjunct professor of sports psychology at the University of San Francisco, recommended two approaches to the formation of team culture in his July 29, 2013 Huffington Post column.

“The second approach, and the one that I recommend, is for coaches to take an active (though not dominating) role in the creation of a team culture,” Taylor wrote. “Through your leadership and open discussions with team members, your team can identify the values, attitudes and beliefs that you and your athletes want to act as the foundation of the team culture.”

With respect to Mike Leach, the attitudes of WSU football players off the field are demonstrating neither self-respect nor respect for the fellow students they represent. Simple ‘don’t’ rules are not enough, and Leach is smart enough to know better.

To create a truly successful Cougar football program, Leach and Director Bill Moos must instill a culture of ruthless discipline inside and outside the locker room. Only then will this football program be worthy of fans like Alex Rodriguez.

Correction: This column, which ran in the Aug. 23 edition of the paper, did not properly acknowledge the presumption of innocence surrounding a reported assault on July 23. No arrests have been made at this time. The column has been updated to reflect this.

Tyler Laferriere is a graduate student pursuing his master’s in economics from Phoenix, Arizona. He can be contacted at 335-2290 or by [email protected]. The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the staff of The Daily Evergreen or those of The Office of Student Media.