and more issues. Seems like a mess if I believe every rumor out there.

As for your questions, I don't know for sure, but I can speculate like everyone else on cb...

My guess is that the other departments don't receive the same scrutiny. I attended BYU and if I had gotten in trouble with the honor code office I doubt the math professors would have gotten any guff from the powers that be. On the other hand, I was not recruited by my math teachers, I would not have attended another school if not for the math teachers, I did spend hours on end in the presence of one specific professor, I did not learn discipline and obedience to "team" rules from any specific professor. I did not consider any of the professors to be my mentor or anything more than a tool for knowledge. I did not do a bunch of overnight trips with the math department.

As part of the job of coach, it is sort of expected of you to discipline and train your players to stay in line, to keep grades up, to stay elligible to play (just like it is their job to get you to come to the school in the first place). As coach, you also have the responsibility of policing the students at least on trips for away games. It is not the same as other programs in the school. It is unique in many more ways than visibility.

All that being said, I think it is fair that you are a bit skeptical. I imagine some of it is publicity, but when one or two things happen publicly there is not a whole lot of calling for the end of the program. It is when there are so many public things that you highly suspect the program is riddled with problems. That is when you start hearing talk of shutting the program down. The two, publicity and frequency sort of go hand in hand.

Now for a possible defense of publicity not being as bad a reason as you think, people on here talk about what a good missionary tool it is (as a side not, those same people, or others on here, claim we should drop the honor code all together...bit of a dichotemy there...). The athletic department in many ways is the face of the school in many ways. If a missionary was not worthy, and a huge mess, would you want him to be the face of the church? Sure all members make mistakes, but do we want a missionary who smells like weed and is known for having sex with woman in the area to be the face of the church? Do you think it would be hipocritical of the church to treat that missionary differently than me (a guy who lives in a neighborhood that is 98% mormon, sits in the middle to back of the building with no real responsibility). If you disagree with my assessment, I would like to hear why. I'm just thinking about this right now, so my opinions may not be set in stone, but this makes sense to me.

sorry for the length of this. real discussions take time.