I will be the first to admit that my school is not perfect. No school is or ever will be, but it's definitely a goal to strive towards. In a recent video, a Baylor football player was seen beating his dog with a belt for having an accident in the house. Of course, I was extremely disappointed and disheartened by this news; no one should ever think it is okay to strike an animal. Other than a vague sense of sadness, I remained relatively unaffected until I happened upon a post on my Facebook feed that really crushed me. It read, "the lack of serious discipline by this university is appalling." My first response was anger. How dare anyone attack MY school, MY home?! I then realized that this seemingly unfounded sentence held some truth, though it was a truth that didn't only apply to Baylor. There is a "lack of discipline" across the board in college athletics. It is an epidemic that has been sweeping the nation, particularly in football.

Football is the true american pastime; it is the pride and joy of many universities and is a lifestyle in Texas. Unfortunately, football programs also get colleges into trouble and can present them in a bad light. There is no better example than my beloved school right now. There is so much animosity and disgust towards Baylor and I understand where it stems from. From the recent sexual assault scandal to the video I mentioned above, Baylor seems like it is doing it all wrong. The truth is, while the actions of these few people make Baylor seem this way, it isn't true. Months ago, Baylor hired Pepper-Hamilton to perform a comprehensive investigation for the very purpose of identifying problems within our school. Not only did we ask them to conduct this investigation, but we released it ON PURPOSE. Following the release of the report, we fired our head coach, Art Briles, and our president, Ken Starr. While we have gained national attention for this, we need to focus on the real issue that lies in all collegiate football at every school.

Just this year there have been 140 arrests in college football alone. One Hundred and Forty. Let that number sink in for a minute. Three of those have been from Baylor, three from UNT, 3 from Texas A&M, 2 from OU, and the list goes on. The main problem is that most of these player are STILL PLAYING. Many don't face any repercussions from their school. We need to stop blaming and singling out universities for a few select people and start looking at them as a whole and the root of this problem. We need to be giving collegiate athletes harsher punishment for their actions and holding them to a higher standard because many of them are on scholarship and in the public eye. They shouldn't be able to get away with their actions just because they bring in money for their college.

Lastly, I wanted to mention the fact that the actions of one person do not define a school as a whole. Just because a football player wasn't given a punishment that you see as just, doesn't give you reason to hate a school as a whole. Love others and work towards making every university a better and safer place. God bless.