Columnist Dean Juipe: Athletes creating crime spree

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, July 28, 1999 | 9:36 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

The managing editor of this newspaper has on more than one occasion suggested the sports section add a daily feature -- a small box on the same page every day -- that would profile whatever athlete had run afoul of the law during the most recent 24-hour period.

Ever so facetiously, he believes there are enough troubled athletes who are breaking laws and getting caught that the designated news hole would always be filled.

And while his suggestion has never been implemented, it has enough merit to be considered.

If it had gone past the consideration stage, the greatest challenge of late would be narrowing the field of daily law breakers to select that day's most deserving offender.

The cops have had their hands full with athletes forcing themselves onto the police blotter, and the instances of unruly or criminal conduct are nationwide and many.

Even the most harmless of the mishaps -- 14 UCLA football players being accused of illegally possessing and using handicap parking cards -- is detestable. They're due in court today and a photo of that public flogging would certainly qualify under the Bad Boys Running Wild heading.

Maybe it's the summer heat or maybe it's the age-old tendency of some athletes to get a little too full of themselves, but look at this sampling of disgraceful conduct from the past week: Demetrius DuBose, a linebacker with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, is shot and killed by police after he allegedly is caught in an act of burglary in San Diego; championship boxer Fernando Vargas is arrested on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and burglary in Santa Barbara; boxer Ike Ibeabuchi, a rising heavyweight, is arrested and charged with sexual assault and battery in Las Vegas after accosting a call girl in his Mirage hotel room; and pro football players Jumbo Elliott and Matt O'Dwyer of the New York Jets are hit with a $6.3 million civil suit after being arrested for their part in a barroom brawl in New York.

Beyond the highlights listed above are numerous incidental disturbances that include former Oklahoma quarterback Jamele Holieway pleading innocent to charges that he freed a handcuffed woman from an Oklahoma City police car. Ordinarily that would be noteworthy and looked at sinisterly, but with so many other athletes getting cuffed Holieway's alleged misadventure barely rates a mention and seems almost humorous in comparison.

Same thing with the youth league umpire in Brentwood, Pa., who was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and reckless endangerment after trying to run over a parent who had been heckling him at a game.

Jurisprudence and athletics have had a long relationship but they have never been so thoroughly immersed.

And if the trend continues, the feds will be able to stock an entire prison with men (and women) who used their misguided athleticism to embarrass themselves, their families and even the sports in which they achieved their fame.

Yes, it is a mean, cruel world out there. But no, sports stars don't need to contribute to the country's crime statistics.

If they insist on doing it, this paper's managing editor eventually is going to get his way and a succession of misdeeds by people who should know better will become a staple of this publication, iconoclast as that seems.