Editorial: UM needs to change the way it runs its football program

If you haven’t heard, another former Montana football player was arrested last week. Well, in all fairness, it’s the same player returning to court.
The University of Montana, the city of Missoula and Griz fans have put up with the assaults, drug busts, alleged murders and DUIs. Enough, at some point, must be enough.
Cody Von Appen’s most recent assault charge, stemming from a Nov. 2 incident outside a fraternity, should come as a surprise only to those who naively believed pampered young men would stop behaving like idiots. 

Because if you’re like me, you’re starting to wonder where the problem really lies. This time, it’s not just other schools’ rejects and it’s no longer black men struggling to adapt in Montana. Von Appen was a white freshman from Hawaii, the son of a former Grizzly assistant coach. He and two other players, one from Missoula, were charged with beating another student in September — which was caught on tape — and are awaiting trial. By allegedly assaulting another student on Nov. 2, Von Appen violated the terms of his release on the earlier charges.
While Von Appen sits in jail, it should be UM officials reflecting on his crime. It’s time for accountability, and suspending players or kicking them off the team only goes so far. The University of Montana needs to systematically overhaul the way it runs its football program.
It’s time for transparency.
Privacy is out the window when the issue at hand is public safety. And it shouldn’t be just for football players. The University needs to release information about students charged with violent crimes to assure members of the campus population that UM is safe.
Head coach Bobby Hauck won’t talk about the arrested players. Athletics Director Jim O’Day’s office assistants refer media requests to Executive Vice President Jim Foley. Foley apparently isn’t particularly good about returning phone calls to the press.
So we’re left with two assaulted students, one player in jail, and more questions than we can fit in this space.
As it is, the football team doesn’t release information on injured players or team suspensions. How can we tell the injured players from the criminals? Dean of Students Charles Couture guards University suspension information like it’s vital to national security.
So after Von Appen’s first arrest the media and the public were largely left to wonder whether the players were even on the team or in school anymore. The next we hear of Von Appen? Arrested again, with media reporting he withdrew from school a week before he appeared in court. The administration didn’t return phone calls to confirm or deny if he was enrolled up to the Nov. 2 beating.
Last spring Couture banned a group of UM students from campus after they staged a peaceful sit-in in President George Dennison’s office demanding sweat-free Grizzly apparel. However, when a football player — supposedly a chief ambassador for the University — attacked two fellow students, it took a district court judge to bar Von Appen from campus, as Judge Dusty Deschamps did Monday.
For one of the proudest football programs in the country, it’s surprising that Montana can be so cowardly.
Hauck remains mum and O’Day should not get a free pass. As the head of the Athletics Department, he needs to be the one person answering criticism and keeping the public informed of what will be done to change the culture of entitlement and violence. Yet, he bounces questions to Foley, whose phone must be on silent. It’s time to start asking President Dennison questions.
What’s the image you want to promote, President Dennison? That the Montana Grizzlies win at all costs, with little regard for character on its athletic teams? That the University of Montana would rather let people guess what it has up its sleeve while the public worries about what football player will do what next?
President Dennison, you need to come down hard on players – and for that matter, all students who commit violent crimes – to protect students on this campus.
President Dennison, you need to come down hard on the football program until things start to change, until players’ names appear only on the team roster and not on the jail roster.
President Dennison, the physical injuries inflicted by Von Appen thankfully will heal, but if you do not quickly restore Montana’s image to one of honor and integrity, the black eye on this University will not go away so quickly.
william.oram@umontana.edu