Gary Pinkel and Mike Alden have a decision to make about Dorial Green-Beckham, although it's really a decision about whether the Missouri football team should have a higher membership standard than the Boone County Jail.

Thursday, the Columbia Police Department announced that it would not arrest Green-Beckham, the star wide receiver who was accused of bursting into an apartment where he was not wanted and shoving a woman down a set of stairs early Sunday morning. He allegedly was in a quest to retrieve his girlfriend, and he did so by dragging her out by the neck, if her subsequent text message is to be believed.

The alleged victim of the shove, who complained of an injured wrist, decided against pursuing charges after she received a full-court press of text messages from Green-Beckham's girlfriend, who acknowledged that the wide receiver did wrong but begged her to drop the matter for the sake of his football career.

One disturbing text from the girlfriend indicated that Missouri coaches leaned on her to keep the police out of it � an allegation she later denied in an interview with the police and one that MU athletic spokesman Chad Moller also denied. Another text said she felt bad because "now he's hurting my friends not just me."

When the police officer asked the alleged victim of the shove why she had decided against prosecution, "she stated she was afraid of the media and community backlash since Green-Beckham is a football player for the University of Missouri and is possibly going in the NFL draft soon," according to the incident report.

It's sad that she feels that way and even sadder that her opinion will be validated if DGB is catching passes in front of 60,000 cheering fans on Saturdays next fall.

Green-Beckham was indefinitely suspended on Monday, and that remained his status as of this morning. He needs to be gone. The athletic department has embarrassed itself recently in its responses to cases of its athletes attacking women. It cannot keep making the same mistake.

Green-Beckham has yet to publicly tell his version of what happened that night, but not many good reasons come to mind for a man to shove a woman down stairs. I didn't get worked up about Green-Beckham's two previous marijuana arrests � those were victimless crimes � but I have zero sympathy for men who assault women.

The timing of this mess couldn't be worse for Pinkel and Alden. The university's questionable handling of swimmer Sasha Menu-Courey, who said she was raped by a football player and later committed suicide, was an international news story and the cause of an independent investigation. Yesterday, Zach Price was kicked off the basketball team after getting arrested twice in one day for allegedly assaulting teammate Earnest Ross and his girlfriend.

The more applicable cautionary tale, though, is former basketball player Michael Dixon. His first alleged sexual-assault victim, an athletic department tutor, initially reported an incident to campus police and told athletic department officials about it in January 2010. A nurse who examined her concluded force was involved. But she decided against pressing charges, and Alden and former Missouri Coach Mike Anderson let Dixon stay on the team. Dixon helped the Tigers win games for two more years until another sexual-assault allegation � and the release of the incident report about the first alleged assault � ended his career at Missouri.

In my opinion, that do-nothing decision on Dixon in 2010 was the most disappointing moment of Alden's tenure.

Green-Beckham would win some games for Missouri next year. He is a difference-maker. At 6-foot-6 and 225 pounds, he is such a weapon in the red zone that he turns field-goal drives into touchdown drives.

But you can't start with the premise that Green-Beckham is too valuable to lose and then work backward, hiding behind the legal system and coming up with reasons to keep him. If you're going to talk about the athletic department's core values � academic integrity, social responsibility and competitive athletic excellence � all of them have to count, not just the third one.