Young men make mistakes. So do old men. No one is immune to making a wrong choice. However, having said that, I also believe FIRMLY in the principle of accountability and consequence of choice. When you choose wisely, you are generally rewarded for the decision even if that reward is nothing more than a clean conscience and a clear mind unfettered by the worry of discovery.
When you choose poorly, and do so habitually, you open up a can of worms that just never seems to stop breeding. It's not that choosing poorly in and of itself is so horrible that you become unredeemable. It is that making certain choices reveal so much of your character and your decision making process that it becomes undeniable that you are untrustworthy and worse yet, that you are developing a streak within that sees nothing wrong with the victimization of other people for temporary personal gain.
That is dangerous.
The mind that thinks this way is a mind that has a serious problem with understanding the feelings, needs and desires of another human soul. It is the same kind of mind that assumes as long as no personal pain is experienced and that you are not "caught" that whatever act you committed isn't really a big deal and that is a tremendous problem that in short order becomes a societal one.
No organization, team or family can long tolerate the behavior of the few who do not feel that rules apply equally to all members. Their presence serves as the kind of disruptive factor that can destroy all that it comes in contact with and that wounds all whom it touches. The people who act as if the world is their oyster and everything they can touch or lay claim to should somehow be theirs with no thought of the labor of another are a burden to all.
The "infection", if you will, of this dangerous mindset can corrupt an entire group of people to the degree that they become drones on society and that is truly a heartbreak. Far better to sever out the few weak tendrils than to allow them to grow and breed and choke the life out of the tender plant that is personal accountability and character.
Many have criticized Nick Saban for not "acting immediately" to throw the 4 young men off the team for their robbery of a fellow UA student. He suspended them indefinitely pending investigation by the school and then, when the facts were all in place, they were dismissed - not just from the team, but from the campus, the school and the family that is the University of Alabama.
Saban did the right thing by allowing the university officials to conduct their investigation and to allow the honor code of the school to guide the way. A hasty rush to judgment wasn't warranted and serves no good purpose. The young men confessed so it was simply a matter of timing.
Our microwave society doesn't take too kindly to being told that decisions of this magnitude need to be more crockpot than microwave. By that, I mean that had the school acted presumptively and then discovered that some or all of the young men had been innocent in any degree, it would have created a trust problem between the students and the faculty that serves no one.
A crockpot mentality takes time to develop the idea into an act. Had these four young men been more deliberate in there thinking, perhaps they would have turned from their notion of destroying their own opportunity and that of abusing the trust of a UA family member in the process. I cannot guarantee they wouldn't have gone on ahead and acted rashly. But I can say that had at least some of them might have given their actions a second thought, the evening might well have turned out differently for all concerned.
Being responsible isn't "sexy". People view the "responsible one" as a wet blanket at a party, a real downer and someone who doesn't know how to live in the moment. But the truth is, our society does not function if everyone is a spontaneous "life of the party" functionary. We NEED the responsible persons to remind us all that while there are parties in life, life itself is NOT a party. There are times where we must deliberate carefully the cost of our actions on ourselves, our family and upon the larger world we must share with others.
Being responsible may well have saved the four students from their own stupidity and saved their victim the trauma caused by those whom he should have been able to trust always.
I do hope that this experience will serve to be an example to these four young men. They can be forgiven and move on with their lives in positive and exemplary fashion. But that course of consequence only comes when you have struggled to do the right thing over and over again and developed the muscle of responsibly behavior needed to act as an adult instead of a spoiled child.
And that is the difference between merely drifting along and becoming a vital, driving force for good.
Responsibility. It's not just for "other" people.
Roll Tide and let's all make some good choices out there.
