Eddie Floyd, one of the longest serving members of the University of South Carolina Board of Trustees, last week accused USC campus police of unfairly targeting university athletes.

“I feel they have overstepped in some areas,” Floyd said. “After talking to some of the people, this is how I feel. And I always say what I feel, good or bad.”

Point number one: Whenever someone makes accusations, it is always wise to have facts to back them up. Notice how Floyd nebulously talks about “some” areas and “some” people. He refers only to his “feelings,” not to any substantiation of actual profiling. This is a dangerous road for a university leader to take, especially when he takes it to the public pages of the newspaper and the Internet.

Point number two and perhaps what really upsets me about this situation: University athletes are boys and girls who are in the process of becoming young men and women. They come to the university as “stars,” many of them highly recruited with egos that have been stroked better than a two-hour massage. When boys and girls engage in negative and sometimes illegal activities, they should be disciplined and made to realize the consequences of poor choices.

It matters not whether they play sports. But then again, it matters more if they play sports. Many of the university athletes are on some type of scholarship to attend the university, to complete a degree and to play the sport they love. They are a privileged few in the thousands of students who trudge to class and cram for exams, more often without the tutorial assistance that athletes receive. If anything, their behavior should reflect a higher standard that says, in essence, “I fully understand my responsibility to live up to the trust that the university has placed in me and to the gift it has given me to do what I love while receiving a college degree.”

Since Jan. 1, 2008, nine USC athletes have been arrested, or received citations. Six of those athletes represent the football team; two play on the women’s basketball team; and one plays on the men’s basketball team. For one of the football players, the 2008 incident was his third since being recruited by USC.

This is hardly evidence of targeting by campus police or any other law enforcement agency. Most student athletes do not engage in these activities and are not the subject of ad nauseam media coverage that puts their names and faces before us day after day.

Eddie Floyd is playing the destructive role of blaming someone else for the choices these athletes have made. He has given them every reason in the book to play the blame game, a dangerous precedent that teaches young people the wrong lessons about life. The very best thing that can happen to an athlete who chooses to associate with the wrong people, to engage in illegal activities and to essentially thumb his/her nose at the very institution that is paying his/her way through college is to be held accountable by that institution, in addition to any legal penalties he incurs.

Instead, Eddie Floyd has given the green light to point the finger where it does not belong, to a university police department whose officers are sworn to uphold the law equally for every student. I am very concerned that Eddie Floyd is asking the university to excuse student athletes for misdeeds; at least that is what he seems to imply. Otherwise, why would he, as a member of the board of trustees, not desire the highest quality student-athlete the university can recruit?

As one of the longest-serving members of the USC Board of Trustees, we might refer to Dr. Floyd as the upper crust of the governing board. Unfortunately, in this instance, the upper crust is just a bit too flaky for my tastes. It is encouraging to note that other members of the board vehemently disagree with Dr. Floyd.

Harris Murray is director of library services at Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College. She can be reached by e-mail at writeharris55@yahoo.com.

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