As horrific as the fight between The University of Miami and Florida International was, I think it did bring up an important lesson. This kind of behavior does not just occur in the professional ranks, but in the collegiate ranks as well.

I have heard the argument that people have stopped watching professional sports because of the “thug mentality” that professional sports has become associated with. To an extent, I would agree with them. Look at players like Ron Artest, Jamal Lewis and Stephen Jackson.

But let’s not forget college players like Maurice Clarett, the Duke lacrosse team and now what has happened last weekend in Florida. The reason for players acting like this in college and eventually the pro level is because they believe they are above the law. Well, basically they are treated like they are.

From the time that these kids are physically capable of doing anything athletic, they are pampered like they are royalty. If someone can play well enough, it does not matter what grades that player gets, just as long as he or she plays. Or if they are professional, it does not matter what illegal activity he or she does, just as long as they play and play well. But all of this is not the athletes’ fault.

When we look at college, it is usually more important to the universities to make money than it is to give these athletes a good education. You don’t think so? Look at Miami University, which has had three fights in a game in less that two seasons. The university’s most severe punishment was a mere one game suspension. It took a player swinging his helmet for the “U” to suspend someone for longer than one game after this incident.

The reason Miami and other universities are so lenient in their punishment is because these players make them a lot of money and that is more important to the schools. If the schools were really concerned with the athletes and their behavior, they would not recruit them. Most of these players have already had legal trouble before getting into college and yet universities kill themselves to get them into their school.

If there was any question to what was more important to the universities, athletics or money, look at the BCS. The BCS makes the universities more money than a playoff system would, so they choose a computer system to pick the National Championship than a playoff system. The university presidents say it is because the athletes would miss too much school if college football had a playoff system. Funny, these same university presidents do not complain about college basketball players missing basically a month of school in March.

Then if these universities would stop letting these type of kids into school, the professional ranks might know about their skill and would stop drafting them. Then maybe we could have the “thug” mentality out of sports or at least get rid of some of it.

Now, in competitive sports, there are going to be fights and people making mistakes. But when this happens, the universities or the professional organizations need to make the punishment severe, so that players will stop acting like idiots. When a fight happens to a professional player, fine them for more than $5,000, which is nothing to them. When a college player does something wrong, suspend them for more than one game.

If people started treating these athletes like human beings and not money-making machines, maybe the illegal and despicable acts that have been happening in sports would stop. If they don’t, there may not be many fans in the seats to see those athletes on probation play.