SAN FRANCISCO -- As prosecutors mulled whether to file charges against a college football player who allegedly refused to pull up his sagging pants at San Francisco International Airport, the outside world seized the incident to debate broader questions about respect, fashion policies and racial stereotyping.

Deshon Marman, 20, a defensive player for the University of New Mexico and graduate of Lincoln High in San Francisco, was arrested and removed from US Airways flight 488 Wednesday after police said he ignored an airline employee's request to pull up sweatpants that exposed his underwear below the buttocks.

He was jailed for a day in San Mateo County on suspicion of trespassing, battery and resisting arrest before being released on $11,000 bail Thursday. Sheriff's deputies said there was also an outstanding warrant for Marman from Santa Clara County on a marijuana possession charge.

San Francisco police, who took Marman off the plane, said he had refused the pilot's orders and had taken 15 minutes to leave. His family disputed that, saying Marman had pulled up his pants after boarding the plane and thought the problem had been solved after a visit from the pilot.

Instead, the pilot made a citizen's arrest and passengers were forced to deplane, causing an hour and half delay before the jet took off for Phoenix and Albuquerque.

Looked like a thug?

Ranon Ross, who coached Marman on youth teams and is president of the Brown Bombers, a football league in the Bayview, noted that Marman is African American and wears his hair in dreadlocks. He figures the airline employee who told him to hitch up his pants pegged him for a thug.

"How did the request come across?" Ross said. "Was he ordered to do it? Was he asked? Was he threatened? He had a legal right to be there. Knowing Deshon, he probably took issue at how someone came at him, and it escalated from there."

Ross added that Marman held a 3.0 grade point average through high school and City College of San Francisco and that his older brother, John Marman, received an academic and athletic scholarship to West Point.

"Sometimes, when we talk about kids who come out of the Bayview and are trying to make their way out, we're talking about kids who don't have a lot of hope and there's a lot of despair," Ross said. "Deshon Marman is not one of those kids."

Fashion statement

Marman was returning to New Mexico one day after attending the funeral of his best friend and former high school football standout, David Henderson, who was shot May 26 on Kirkwood Avenue and died 11 days later.

Paris Carthen, 47, who coached Marman and Henderson during their Pop Warner years, said sagging pants are a youth fashion statement that wouldn't have caused a fuss at the airport if the right young man had been wearing them.

"If he was a rich and famous rapper wearing his pants that way, the employee probably would have run to him and asked for his autograph," Carthen said. "But because he's not famous, they make assumptions."

Andrew Christie, a spokesman for US Airways, said employees had the discretion to decide whether boarding passengers are wearing clothes that ensure "the safety and the comfort" of other passengers.

It may have been Marman's clothing that set things off, but Christie emphasized that it was his behavior that got him arrested.

"It's an important distinction to note that (Marman) was not removed from the plane due to what he was wearing," Christie said. "It was for the fact that he was not following crew member's instructions."

Different looks

The issue of whether Marman should have been asked to pull up his pants in the first place was the greater concern for others.

Jake Tommerup, 57, of Phoenix, who was aboard flight 488, said he had been annoyed by the hour-and-a-half delay. But he also said he was stunned by US Airways' reaction to what, in Tommerup's mind, amounted to little more than a questionable fashion choice.

"When I get on a plane and see a 13-year-old girl with her whale tail" - exposed G-string underwear - "and fat old white guys with plumber's crack sitting down, and middle-aged ladies in halter tops and tons of cleavage - if you're not going to kick those people off the plane or ask them to cover up, then let's admit the hypocrisy."