Sep 21, 2014 5 min read

Florida State’s half-baked attempt to punish Jameis Winston is all you need to know.

You remember Winston, last year’s Heisman Trophy winner who beat the rap on a sexual assault accusation. The prosecutor, William N. Meggs, said because of a sloppy police investigation, he didn’t have enough evidence to prove the alleged victim had been raped.

The New York Times did some digging and determined that, “There was no investigation at all, either by the police or the university.

“The detective handling the case waited two months to write his first report and then prematurely suspended his inquiry without informing the accuser.”

The consensus among most observers is Winston got the star quarterback of the possible National Championship winner treatment.

Fast forward to Tuesday and Winston is standing on a table in the Florida State student union yelling – Well, never mind what he was yelling. It’s a vulgar phrase that shouldn’t be written here, and it’s definitely not something that someone recently accused of sexual assault should be saying out loud in a public place.

For that, Florida State head football coach Jimbo Fisher “suspended” Winston for the first half of Saturday’s game against Clemson.

Something happened between Wednesday and late Friday night to wise up the educators at FSU, and they doubled the suspension and made him sit out the game.

One more big opportunity missed by a big time college coach.

Fisher had the chance to send an obviously well-needed message to Winston and a powerful message to the rest of his team.

He could have – no, should have – suspended Winston for at least three games. It’s those types of missed opportunities that lead to the problems that the NFL has been having the last few weeks.

Little or no accountability.

West Virginia coach Dana Holgerson was told by Morgantown police Wednesday that they had a nightclub surveillance video of his best defensive player, cornerback Daryl Worley, putting both his hands on a woman’s throat and throwing her to the ground.

Worley was charged with battery, and WVU suspended him for an indefinite period of time, which apparently means more than half a game.

Holgerson should have kicked Worley off the team.

For good.

No second chance.

And when WVU athletic director Oliver Luck saw Holgerson wasn’t willing to get rid of him, he should have stepped in and done it himself. And when WVU president Gordon Gee saw Luck wasn’t willing to do the right thing, he should have kicked Worley out.

The time for second chances is over.

Big time college and professional athletes obviously have not been getting the messages.

Token punishments and empty threats aren’t working anymore if they ever did.

When a player is kicked off for committing a violent crime, other teams need to avoid the temptation to give him that second chance no matter how talented he might be.

It’s time for college coaches and administrators to start taking preemptive action. When a high school athlete proves he can’t stay out of trouble or do college work, don’t offer him a scholarship.

Or shut up about how you’re trying to clean up college sports.

Pro teams should do what the Philadelphia Eagles did with their All-Pro wide receiver Desean Jackson this summer after reports surfaced he was hanging out with gang members in Los Angeles, including two who were suspected of murder.

They released him.

It produced a good bit of whining among the national sports media about how there was no real proof, and Jackson hadn’t committed any crimes.

That’s exactly the point. That’s what preemptive means. Nip it in the bud. Don’t draft college players who have criminal pasts or criminal friends.

NFL owners such as the Ravens’ Steve Bisciotti, who according to ESPN, knew exactly what Ray Rice did in the elevator that night, have to stop hiding behind the commissioner and pushing for leniency and start doing the right thing.

Or just shut up.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell hasn’t been receiving high marks from the media or players since he came out of hiding for a Friday press conference to announce how different things are going to be now.

He was ripped for being evasive and hypocritical.

Most of the criticism is misdirected. The media should be going after the team owners. They can no longer be allowed to push Goodell out to the podium to apologize for doing their bidding. Individual teams have the power to come down hard on their own players without waiting for the commissioner’s cover.

Dan Rooney had a quarterback who was being accused of sexual assault for the second time in less than a year. He was embarrassing the team for years with his public behavior.

Rooney should have released Ben Roethlisberger.

James Harrison should have been released five minutes after he admitted to slapping his baby’s mother in 2008.

When rookie nose tackle Alameda Ta’amu went on a rampage on Pittsburgh’s South Side in his SUV, bouncing off cars and racking up 15 charges, not to mention endangering lives, instead of the two-week suspension he received, he should have been released two minutes after the initial phone call.

If there is such a thing as “The Steelers Way,” the Rooney family can take the lead by having a real zero tolerance policy toward all criminal or even highly questionable behavior, before and after they make a player a Steeler.

Or they can shut up, too.

John Steigerwald writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter.