Over the last few weeks, both the football and basketball teams here at Iowa State have needlessly lost players due to illicit activity. On April 11, defensive lineman David Irving was charged with fifth degree theft, disorderly conduct and criminal mischief because of his conduct while acting as a member of the crowd that gathered on Welch Avenue on Tuesday night of Veishea. Because of this, he was dismissed from the ISU football team. Then on the following day basketball forward Abdel Nader was arrested for operating a vehicle while intoxicated and was consequently suspended from the basketball team indefinitely.

Responding to the actions of these student-athletes in this way essentially punishes everyone associated with Iowa State by removing talented players from our school’s teams. Apparently the conduct policies they must follow unfortunately do not account for their level of talent. So in the end, holding all players to a higher standard means we are effectively setting our entire school up to fail.

Student-athletes do not come to Iowa State to be role-model students. Our school invites them to play for our team because they are good at sports, so why should they be expected to obey the law, or conduct themselves in a respectable manner? Just as politicians should only be expected to be good at politics and nothing else, and celebrities only skilled at being famous, student-athletes should solely be expected to be great athletes. This is why, as a school, we must be willing to offer these athletes more leniency regarding personal conduct, especially if all we really want is for the Cyclones to win. As long as the players are helping to meet this goal, why should we be concerned with how they affect our school’s image?

When an athlete is chosen to play for the Cyclones, they agree to officially represent our university during competition. But just because they wear our school’s uniform does not mean they should be held to a high standard. If Iowa State’s student-athlete code of conduct restricts players by punishing them for actions such as breaking the law, our school gains the reputation of a dictatorship that unfairly demands excellence from its students.

But it is exactly this kind of standard for excellence that Paul Rhoads described when announcing Irving’s dismissal, stating “I run a disciplined program, where the highest of character and integrity is demanded out of anybody that represents this program. Simultaneously, I think it is one of my responsibilities, if not one of my greater responsibilities, to help young, sometimes immature, young men become men.” Furthermore, according to a statement by the ISU athletic department media relations given to the Des Moines Register, the reason for Nader’s suspension is directly due to his violation of student-athlete conduct policy. Unfortunately it seems that there is currently no place on Iowa State’s sports teams for athletes who act irresponsibly.

In addition to Irving and Nader, there are also other student-athletes that could be currently facing discipline because of their illegal actions. For example, on April 9, running back DeVondrick Nealy was  pulled over for excessive noise coming from his vehicle and told by law enforcement to reduce the amount of sound being produced. Fifteen minutes later, he was pulled over again and arrested for failure to comply. Despite the fact that he has was also previously arrested just after joining Iowa State’s football team because of actions he took in association with a group involved in armed robbery, suspending him from the team at this time would be excessive punishment. Our teams need good players, so how can we afford to get rid of any simply for breaking the law multiple times?

Clearly, the policies governing Iowa State athletes are causing many players to be ineligible to play for our school. As a school with limited athletic resources, we are restricting ourselves further by holding our players to a high standard. We cannot afford to let well-performing athletes go simply because we want them to act responsibly and obey the rules like everyone else. Surely student-athletes must be held to a different standard than the rest of us.