CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The term "Whiz Kids" in sports originally referred to the 1950 Philadelphia Phillies, a band of precocious, pennant-winning bonus babies who averaged just over 26 years of age. The term has since acquired more sinister connotations, based less on "kids" than "whiz."

Two Ohio State football players, senior tight end Jake Stoneburner and junior tackle Jack Mewhort, have been suspended indefinitely by the team until the resolution of second-class misdemeanor charges filed against them. The new "Whiz Kids" allegedly took illegal relief in the area outside a tavern called the Bogey Inn near the Muirfield Village Golf Course in suburban Dublin in the wee-wee hours (2:30 a.m.) of the morning of June 2.

Both players, along with a third man not affiliated with the OSU football team, fled on foot from Shawnee Hills police. Two of the suspects were found hiding between cars in a parking lot used for the golf tournament. The third gave himself up after a chase in the woods when his pursuers threatened to use police dogs. Pleas that the young gentlemen were merely watering the greens were unavailing. The suspects will be arraigned Monday in Delaware County.

One supposes that had Stoneburner, who will be a prominent part of new coach Urban Meyer's whiz-bang offense this fall, and Mewhort, the Buckeyes' best returning offensive lineman, been from Yellow Springs, home of Antioch College, their actions might have been construed simply as displays of school spirit.

They are hardly the first football players to be nabbed. Texas has an illegal irrigation problem, too. Decades ago, police arrested Dallas Cowboys quarterback Craig Morton after spotting him in the act of "sprinkling the infield" behind a billboard.

In the same general time period, Darrell Royal, the celebrated University of Texas coach listened, unimpressed, to a long monologue before the 1972 Cotton Bowl by Penn State's Joe Paterno, who said his scrawny little team had scant chance, even though it had no less than Franco Harris in the backfield. Said Royal, "Joe, you're peein' on my leg."

Locally, ESPN's Gary Miller, while covering the 1997 American League Championship Series between the Indians and Baltimore, was charged with public indecency at a nightclub in The Flats called the Basement. Skirting the long men's room lines, Miller used a nearby window instead. Unfortunately, an off-duty policeman stood outside -- and below -- it.

Clearly, this new concept of "streaming sports" must be curtailed. Still, it's not as if the two Buckeyes were apprehended with a "Whizzinator," a device designed to foil drug tests with powdered, "clean" urine, as was former Minnesota Vikings running back Onterrio Smith in 2005.

Some people in sports have things to hide, some don't. Years before the baseball players union finally agreed to drug testing, former Indians manager Pat Corrales had no problem with the idea. "They can test me all they want. All they'll find is Colorado Kool-Aid," said Corrales, referring to Coors beer.

A former NBA coach in the 1960s, who shall remain nameless, once explained how to avoid the fate of Stoneburner and Mewhort, even when behind the wheel of a car. His method was to pull to the side of the road, use the car to shield his lower body from the view of passing drivers, raise the hood, and peer intently under it, all while adjusting his own fluid levels.

It is difficult to consider Stoneburner and Mewhort archfiends, even after the torrent of scandals in Columbus in the past year. Many men -- whether on a golf course, or in the woods hunting (but preferably not while fishing), or even on the wetlands around the Bogey Inn -- have, from time to time, stepped outside mainstream practices.

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