I found Darrin Cline’s take on student athletes intriguing but misguided. It’s very easy and also unfair to use a cookie cutter analogy to apply to all individuals who play sports at Iowa State because, more often than not, that cookie cutter has a negative connotation. It is clear to anyone who follows sports that there are problems in collegiate athletics. For the most part, Iowa State has avoided these problems, but as in any situation, there are exceptions.

I am a football player, and as such I can’t speak for the other sports teams here at Iowa State. It’s my opinion that if you’re outside of a program, you don’t know anything except what you infer from the manicured, politically correct, simplified press conferences and interviews. It drives me absolutely crazy listening to sports broadcasters during televised games or reading articles from people who by and large did not participate at the level of athletics they are analyzing. You just don’t know everything, and it’s that simple. That’s why my insight pertains to football, as that is what I know.

We are not all virgin missionaries with Bible verses on our eye black. Nor do we all trade our bowl game gifts for tattoos. Most football players are somewhere in the middle; well-behaved and hard working guys who want to play a great game, get a degree and graduate. The hot heads that come in freshman year thinking they will skirt through college on their way to the league either change very quickly, leave or are asked to leave. Players come and go frequently.

Cline made an interesting point in his article when he said that athletes like swimmers and cross country runners don’t get in trouble as often as football players. Most sports, including swimming and cross country, have between 10 and 40 athletes. Football is usually around 120. Just by pure numbers, it is more likely for there to be blemishes to the football team at Iowa State. Also, how many swimmers, cross country runners or even football players would you recognize on a Friday night on Welch Avenue? For the most recognizable athletes, every moment is spent under a microscope and they are held to the highest scrutiny.

For some reason, people, especially the media, like hearing about these guys get in trouble. If Jeff Woody got in trouble for jaywalking, it would be front page of the Daily, while a non-athlete charged with assault or drug possession would be on the back of that page, in the police blotter. We are college students, not angels. However, we know the line that can’t be crossed, and again, most of us don’t.

I find your argument regarding our clothing and appearance to be absolutely ridiculous. As far as the “hefty amount” of free clothes we receive, nothing could be farther from the truth. Most of the clothes we get are for workouts and practices so if you want a padded compression shirt or torn athletic shorts, let me know. The actual clothing that we get is restricted by the NCAA; we aren’t just given free rein to a Nike catalog. In the two years that I have been here I have received two pairs of sweats and four T-shirts. I can assure you that no one has an overflowing wardrobe of clothes from athletics.

This is college. Most of the guys walking around, athlete or not, are wearing sweats and T-shirts, and if you don’t see any formal attire on a football player than you clearly don’t know Benjamin Dinkins. Yes, I wear sweats because I don’t want to throw on my khakis and polo at 5 a.m. when I get up for workouts everyday. Yes the clothes are a perk, but I feel as though they are earned, well-deserved and help us out financially, especially for a walk-on like myself and considering that most, if not all of us, have no opportunity to work and be able to buy our own clothes.

So before you go saying athletes are a blemish on the image of Iowa State, consider this: By typing in “Iowa State” on Google, some of the first articles to come up are about the basketball game against Kansas and the football game against Oklahoma State, not our Nobel Prize winning professor or new athletic training major. Athletics IS the image of Iowa State that people around the nation and world recognize. To them, Iowa State is Paul Rhoads and Fred Hoiberg. That is why athletes must, and usually do, represent Iowa State in a positive manor. I, along with all the other athletes here, are proud to be Cyclones.