Everyone here knows about the everyday side of Iowa State. The education, the dorms, the greek system and the sports — all good, clean fun in the name of learning.

Almost all of us are here solely for academics and would never dream of breaking state and university policies.

All is not well, though. Media coverage has opened my eyes to a group of students on campus so wicked that many have even consumed alcohol. That’s not all: Some have even drank while underage.

I know it’s not pleasant to think about. Is that guy over there with that crazy backward hat one of these creeps who dare show their face in class? Is it that tattooed girl you are sitting by? It’s hard to tell who among us is so bad as to catch the media’s eye with unruly behavior. Luckily, I watch the news.

College athletes soil Iowa State’s name with unacceptable behavior. They pop up in the news more than any other group on campus for alcohol violations. It must be important and unusual activity, or it wouldn’t be newsworthy. When the 13th-string benchbacker gets caught carrying a beer before he is 21, the athletic department has hell to pay. The really scary thing is, the more popular the sport the student plays is, it seems the more likely he or she is to break the law. Or that is what the media would have you believe.

I’m going to let you all in on a secret, though. With my years of insider information in the arts and entertainment scene, I’ve heard a few rumors.

Did you know musicians, artists, actors and even journalists have gotten in trouble with the law? I bet you didn’t. While the rest of us are studying on Friday nights, who knows what these people are up to? The media sure doesn’t.

I demand better coverage. I want to know when the marching band leader of some university gets a possession ticket. I need to hear about a Mime Club president who gets caught with an empty can in the dorm hallways. If a local punk rocker gets caught at a party, the public deserves to know.

It’s important, isn’t it? It must be if it’s front-page news in a metro newspaper when it involves a student who plays sports.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think of student athletes as being more important than other publicly visible students. Sure, local musicians and artists don’t bring thousands of people to their events. Sure, they aren’t doing anything that requires them to wear jock straps and stretch pants — at least not on television.

But in the grand scheme of things, they are all young adults who have just been let loose from their parents. Mistakes sometimes happen.

So, hang the students out for all to ridicule. Be they athletes or oboists, if they are university entertainers, the media should be jumping on every mistake they make.

Either that or maybe we should stop putting one group of public figures on a pedestal and leave room in the news for more important things. It’s not like all of you didn’t scan the Daily’s police log before you flipped to this column, anyway.

Jeff Mitchell is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Urbandale.