Claire McCaskill

This week was a gut-check moment for big-time sports in this country. A giant mirror has been raised for commissioners, coaches and athletic directors across the country. It is their time to take a hard look at team and institutional priorities, their own character, and the message they send to women, children and all fans of the multibillion dollar American sports enterprise.

It was in this context that I spotted an article on ESPN's College Football Nation blog as I waited for the second half of my Mizzou Tigers game against Central Florida. This article reported a poll taken of 128 top college coaches, asking which coach they would want their own son to play for. Ninety-eight of those Division 1 coaches responded. The results? The winners were Georgia's Mark Richt and Oklahoma's Bob Stoops.

I was stunned. Because Stoops recently made a decision that I thought would impact his reputation among his peers. Evidently not.

A few months ago, an outstanding superstar athlete was dismissed from the University of Missouri's football program. Dorial Green-Beckham, known as DGB, was ranked No. 1 in the country as a wide receiver out of high school in 2012. Mizzou went crazy when we signed him. He was a huge part of our team, a standout big-play-big-deal at a school that was stepping up to compete among the nation's elite squads as a newly minted member of the SEC.

On April 6, at 2:30 a.m., DGB forced his way into an apartment where he was looking for his girlfriend. He physically confronted her roommate, including using both hands to her chest to physically push her down stairs, according to the police report. His girlfriend admitted through text messages that he then dragged her from the apartment by her neck. His girlfriend also begged her roommate not to press charges through 16 text messages in the hours that followed the assaults, and police later characterized his girlfriend as "extremely uncooperative." No criminal charges were filed because the young women refused to cooperate.

Nevertheless, Mizzou said goodbye to DGB and dismissed him from the team a few days later. I have been a fan since I was a child growing up in Columbia, and even worked in college as a tutor and recruiting hostess for the football program. I have followed Mizzou for my entire life through ups and downs, victories and defeats. My university is no different from many others in that its record is not perfect in terms of dealing with misconduct by its athletes. But I don't think I have ever been prouder of my team and university than the day coach Gary Pinkel and athletic director Mike Alden announced the decision to kick DGB off the team.

I watched to see whether another program would pick him up. Unfortunately, I didn't have to wait long. Bob Stoops and the Oklahoma Sooners welcomed him, and even petitioned the NCAA to let him play this season. With a straight face they cited the "run-off" rule that allows eligibility for a player who leaves a squad for reasons beyond his control. Thankfully, that request was denied, but he will be eligible to play next year, if he is not drafted by the NFL before then. None of this is particularly surprising. But for Stoops to get the most votes from his fellow coaches as the coach they wanted to influence their sons?

Unfortunately, that says it all. It is time for real leaders in the world of big-time sports to do a soul search on character. Every decision they make reflects on them in ways that a won/loss record never will.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., is a former sex crimes prosecutor.

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