The loaded German word “Schadenfreude” — which means glee in someone else’s misfortune — shouldn’t apply here, not unless you’re willing to laugh about domestic violence. And if you are, there’s another word for you, one not suited for family publications.
That said, news that defensive lineman Jonathan Taylor has been arrested (again) on a charge of domestic violence and booted from Alabama’s team gives us pause. Tide coach Nick Saban believed Taylor, of Jenkins County High in Millen, Ga., was deserving of the privilege of playing major-college football — after he’d been arrested twice as a Georgia Bulldog, the second time for domestic violence.
This is an area that may even be above St. Nick’s exalted pay grade: When should someone in power say “no” to second chances? (In Taylor’s case, actually a third chance.) Christianity is based on forgiveness, while our judicial system is charged with meting out punishment to the guilty. If we average folks have trouble squaring those principles, should we expect football coaches to pick the proper path every time?
Let’s stipulate that Saban was wrong to extend the benefit of the doubt to a player facing separate court dates — one for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend in a dorm room, an assault police say involved strangulation, and another for alleged “theft by deception” in the attempt to double-cash meal-reimbursement checks — dating to his time at Georgia. Did the program that leads the world in 5-star signees need Taylor, who’d been a 4-star recruit, that desperately?
I’m not ready to laugh Saban out of court when he claims — as when speaking of Taylor with Jon Solomon of CBS Sports — that erring young men can be deserving of second chances. (“To not condemn them for life but to give them another chance,” he’d said.) In this instance, however, the nation’s most famous coach missed the bigger picture.
Cam Newton of West Lake High was granted a second chance by Auburn after indiscretions including stealing a laptop to his exit from Florida. Nick Marshall of Pineview landed at Auburn after being dismissed from Georgia’s team for his role in what was described as a dormitory theft. Tray Matthews likewise went the Georgia-to-Auburn route after his involvement in the same double-cashing scheme as Taylor and a classroom blowup with a teacher.
As much as Georgia fans cringed at the sight of Marshall leading the Tigers to the BCS title game, could they really say that Gus Malzahn was morally deprived for taking him — or that Mark Richt was wrong for making him leave? Both coaches had reason to do as they did. (This just in: Life can be complicated.)
Sometimes, though, the line isn’t fuzzy. In the instances cited regarding Newton, Marshall and Matthews, the allegations involved crimes of property, not against people. Even law enforcement draws a distinction: Stealing is bad; inflicting physical harm is worse. While at Georgia, Taylor was charged with the latter and booted from the squad.
Yet Alabama admitted Taylor, even as he was facing a trial on charges of domestic violence, at a time when the names of Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson and Jonathan Dwyer were still fresh in our minds. It admitted Taylor even as all colleges are trying, not with complete success, to deal with crimes against women on campus. It admitted him for no reason other than that he might help win some football games.
His weekend arrest in Tuscaloosa — the police report alleges his 24-year-old girlfriend had “minor injuries to the neck” — makes it appear that the nation’s flagship program chose the path of least resistance. Isn’t that backward? Isn’t imperial Alabama the program that should feel compelled to run the fewest risks?
In a statement released Sunday night, Tide athletic director Bill Battle sought to pin the blame — “in spite of extensive efforts to assist him” — on Taylor, and even that rang hollow. Yes, Taylor was the guy who got himself arrested (again), but it was Alabama football that brought him to Tuscaloosa. And the great Saban, emperor of college football, served as enabler.
