No. We’re Not Ignorning the Hand Arrest
You’ve probably heard that Derrell Hand was arrested during a prostitution sting. Innocent until proven guilty, we don’t know all the details, yadda yadda yadda…
If he his guilty, this whole thing is a little mystifying. Sometimes things happen that are just impossible to explain. This is certainly disappointing.
Coach Weis took immediate, and, by the sound of it, decisive action when Hand was suspended from the team indefinitely. And the ND Nation has spun into a debate about what an institution like Notre Dame should do about this. Should a Catholic University forgive the kid, and bring him back into the fold, hopefully to teach Hand the error in his ways and guide him along a better path? Or should an institution like Notre Dame demand better from its representatives, and immediately sever all ties with those who would sully the image of the institution and flout it’s values? I’ve no idea. Mostly right now I’m just disappointed.
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31 Comments
I thought forgiveness and redemption were Christian traits, not revenge and retribution. But what do I know?
ND, as always on these things, is between a rock and a hard place. If they go easy on him people say, “bunch of hypocrites, they’re just like the Miami’s and everybody else”. But if they hand down a stern decision (like last basketball season) people accuse them of being unforgiving and self-righteous. They just need to give him the same discipline as they would give any other student caught doing the same thing.
EDSBS has a funny remark on this situation.
I personally would blame it on UND for allowing the Vagina Monologues on campus.
Hand: Your honor I was doing a research report for my intro to Art Appreciation course. I ws told to interview a talking Vagina & report a 500 word essy.
Judge: Not guilty young man. Go in peace.
PS. What a country with the PC police running it & ruining it.Geea you can’t even go out for a knobber anymore.
Derrell Hand isn’t the first male to solicit a prostitute. So what? Did anyone die? Is anyone hurt? Big deal! If this were at Miami, USC, or anyplace else it wouldn’t rate a footnote. With apologies to the aforementioned schools, let it go. Stop legislating morality.
I think the actions that have already been taken are sufficient. The kid did something totally stupid and is paying for it now. You dont need to destroy his life to make a point.
I hope it doesn’t ruin his life, but ND, for better or worse, has to have a rigid hand in these kinds of things. Otherwise the entire program, and the school, will have a tough time selling what it’s supposed to be: different. I don’t want a kid that made a stupid choice to have his life ruined, but that won’t happen anyway. It just may be ruined at ND. Besides, if you got busted by a cop for this and it was printed all over the papers and internets, and then got a slap on the wrist and could return to school, would you want to? I would think he’d want to transfer anyway, somewhere like Siberia where they dont know ND so well.
I don’t know what the ’standard’ punishment is for soliciting a hooker, but that’s what he should get. I am guessing he’s suspended at least for the season, if not the year. And expulsion isn’t out of the question, given that I had to scrub floors every saturday for 10 weeks for “opening a door that isn’t supposed to be open during a party”. Even though I didn’t touch that door. Dammit!
Expulsion? Suspension? For what? Big deal….nobody got hurt, nobody’s life was threatened, no one died. Geez, all these sacrosanct people should get on with their lives.
gwzimm, the problem is that this prohibiting this kind of stuff is already in the student code of conduct so as long as it’s there, ND has to choose between balking at its own standards, which they would get blasted for, or holding them up, which they would get blasted for. as in my previous post, i completely agree with Biscuit: he should get whatever any other student would get. FWIW, I know that all athletes are briefed at the beginning of each year on the moral standards, including sexual, that ND stands for and is told up front what is expected of them and what they can expect if they violate them. So you can’t really say, “so what? get off your high-horse”. Hand knew this would get him in serious trouble if he were caught so punishing him is not simply ND’s draconian nature.
Whatever, I just see it as much ado about nothing.
Biscuit,
Just to play devil’s advocate, is it “the Christian thing to do” to worry about our image?
At any rate, if Du Lac says that any student would be expelled because of this, then that’s what any student-athlete should get.
I agree that the University should take no more or less action than they would with any other student. If expulsion is what Du Lac says, then expulsion it is. If not, then the University shouldn’t go beyond their own rules. That said, the punishment the football coaches deal out is seperate from the punishment the University levels, and at the very minimum he should be suspended for the entire season. The football punishment is where they “image” problem comes in–no one cares if a regular student gets arrested, but because it’s an ND football player, it’s news. How Charlie, etc. handle it is what will seperate us from the SEC and OSU’s of the world. At Florida, a booster would immediately supply him with a nubile coed compensated with lovely gifts, I’m sure, Urban would suspend him for the opener against Western Carolina or whomever, and he’d be back on the field in no time. ND doesn’t operate that way, nor should they–anything less than a full year’s suspension is unacceptable. That gives him a year to be just a student and get back on the “right path”. If he chooses to transfer, then so be it as well.
Like it or not, we have to protect ND. Charlie is right in his suspension, and eventually Hand will be gone. I understand the “bring him back into the fold” argument, but the bottom line is that we are Notre Dame and we must be above reproach. Sad, but necessary.
I am with the last few posters. MQ, I get the ‘Christian thing’. And yes, forgiveness is devine. But there are rules for a reason.
And my saying that the right way to handle the situation is to forgive the kid and let him continue on without punishment would be tantamount to hypocrisy, with how much I scream FOUL when Urban and Bowden and all those guys look the other way when their kids do bad things. Granted, theirs may involve guns and drugs instead of cops posing as hookers, but if it’s breaking the school’s code (or the law), it should be punished. I am not saying destroy the kid’s life, but he’s a student and should be punished as such by the school. If I got arrested while at ND, I’d have had hell to pay from a number of constituencies. The only difference here is that it’s an athlete and it’s now public (which is a shame). Charlie will get his own punishment, and the admin theirs. I feel bad for the kid, but he made a bad choice. Letting it go just makes ND and its ‘higher moral code’ some soft fluff.
We MUST stamp out jaywalking, too!!!!!
Biscuit,
I certainly don’t think we should let it go. As I stated before, if Du Lac says kick him out, then kick him out. He should be punished as a student.
I scream foul about Urb, Poodle, a Llloyd because their programs don’t treat the student athlete as students at all. Their brands of punishment usually involved an inverse correlation to the benefit the offender can provide on a football field.
I just don’t want Notre Dame to consider “protecting the image” as a reason to punish the kid. Just follow your own rules, and everything will turn out as it should. Screw anyone who doesn’t like that result.
Surely you guys know that if you’re caught in the act of having sex, say, by your rector, you’re automatically expelled if reported. I can’t imagine the solicitation of a prostitute will have any more mercy.
And gwzimm, soliciting a prostitute is a big f-ing deal. I’m no saint, I DO believe he should be forgiven for what he did, but obtaining that does not mean you can avoid the CONSEQUENCES for your actions. Making an error in judgment of this magnitude (and it is of LARGE, LARGE magnitude…just because “nobody got hurt” does not mean this is egregiously in conflict with how a notre dame student is supposed to act) needs harsh consequences.
Does that mean that Hand will be forever damned by the priests at Notre Dame in their nightly prayers? No. Does that mean he may not be able to complete the privilege of graduating from ND? Possibly.
OK, Tommy, for this egregious offense, I guess we should recall the Inquisition, bring back Torquemada, and put him on the rack. I just don’t see it as such a big deal. It isn’t like he beat up his girlfriend, thre her down the stairs or pulled a gun on somebody.
LARGE LARGE magnitude indeed…….
suspension/expulsion from school and the Inquisition…a totally valid comparison.
Incidentally, du Lac does say that a student won’t be expelled if a pregnancy results “for pastoral reasons”. Anyone remember the running back (blanking on his name) about 10 years ago who had a kid his senior season at ND? Am I remembering this right?
So, you know, just saying.
Truth be told, I went to ND long before it was co-ed, and a LOT of students, athletes and non-athletes alike frequented the houses of ill repute down on Chapin Street. You could run into lots of All Americans down there. And guess what? Nobody cared.
I don’t doubt it, gwzimm, but I suspect when a guy gets booked by the police and it gets plastered all over the news then you have to do something. Something tells me that, in line with what you’re saying, if someone from the university happened to drive by and see Hand doing his thing they would have kept it hush-hush and maybe called the guy in and given him a “come to Jesus” talk. But once the police are involved people are obviously going to care.
But, like you, I’m thankful it wasn’t something violent or injurious to someone else. That is the silver-lining. It would have been much, much worse if it was a sexual assault or something.
OK, sit him down for the Ga. Tech game and then forget about it.
gwzimm,
Every student is made aware of the consequences of any poor decisions they might make when they enter ND. If you can’t do the time…
Like I said at the outset, Christian values are SUPPOSED to be forgiveness and redemption, not revenge and retribution. I don’t think it’s something to ruin a kids life over. Nobody got hurt, nobody died, no harm came to anyone, it’s not a big deal.
you can’t characterize ‘discipline’ as “revenge and retribution”; it’s just not fair. Christ values are SUPPOSED to be foregiveness and redemption AND morality and penance. You can’t pit one against the other as though they are mutually exclusive. Sometimes paying the price for what you did is PART of the redemptive process.
you can’t characterize ‘discipline’ as “revenge and retribution”; it’s just not fair. Christian values are SUPPOSED to be foregiveness and redemption AND morality and penance. You can’t pit one against the other as though they are mutually exclusive. Sometimes paying the price for what you did is PART of the redemptive process.
But the “punishment” should fit the crime. And in this case, I don’t see a big deal of a crime. The kid was entrapped, nobody got hurt, nobody suffered, nobody got robbed, shot, maimed, etc. So yeah, let’s throw him out of school. Maybe put a brand on his forehead. How about tearing out his fingernails. Let’s get over it, boys..
It does fit the crime if, as all the rest of us have been suggesting, he gets the punishment that any other student would get according to what is in du Lac.
gwzimm, you’re getting ridiculous: entrappment is a legl term for when the police deliberately entice you to do something you OTHERWISE wouldn’t be doing and so doesn’t apply here. Second, your harping on this like it’s some medieval torture style of cruel and unjust punishment is getting tired and is grossly exagerated to what all the rest of us are advocating.
It is cruel and unjust to ruin a kid’s life over a hooker, a non-violent offense.
In the 1600’s witchcraft, real or imagined, was a crime too.
And I don’t think it’s really anybody else’s business what the kid did as long as no one got hurt, robbed or otherwise injured.
So, let’s offer the kid up as a sacrifice to republican family values and we’ll all be protected and our lives enriched, right? I’ve said about enough about it.
So, let’s offer the kid up as a sacrifice to republican family values and we’ll all be protected and our lives enriched, right? I’ve said about enough about it.
Dude, where is all the vitriol coming from? Who said anything about getting rich and Republican values? If you don’t like du Lac’s standards then write the adminstiration and telling them to stop being Catholic and start being like tOSU and Miami. As long as it’s on the books and students agree to it when they enroll then they have to be accountable.
Right. When you become a Notre Dame student you sign a contract (pretty literally) stating that you promise to uphold Catholic values as a student there as outlined in Dulac. Agree with them or not, they are a condition of your attendance–they become your values.
The book also outlines the punishment for various offenses if you step out of those values. Things like drinking, smoking pot, having sex, etc. have different gradients of punishment–whether you personally agree with it or not, these gradients are a condition of your attendance. The end.
The rules are the rules and they are the rules. That’s simple. I would guess that his mother who sent him to ND under those rules gave him a worse punishment then ND did. Almost everyone is over looking the “rules.”
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