Alabama and Oregon player accusations show risks of second chances

Alabama defensive tackle Jonathan Taylor was arrested for domestic violence Saturday night, after a woman alleged he had assaulted her. The victim “had minor injuries to her neck from the assault,” according to the police report.

That would be bad enough, but this isn’t the first domestic violence incident Taylor has been involved in. He was dismissed from Georgia after being accused of assaulting another woman. However, even after that previous incident — one without a conviction at this time — Alabama recruited him, with coach Nick Saban saying he “deserved a second chance.”

We recruited this young man out of high school, and we felt that from what we knew about him, what his high school coach said, what the people at the school that he was at said about him, and where he came from in junior college, that he was the kind of guy that deserved a second chance.

On Sunday, Alabama dismissed the former four-star recruit, citing a zero tolerance policy.

But Taylor’s arrest shows the problem with zero tolerance policies when it comes to second chances (or third, in Taylor’s case; he’d previously been arrested at Georgia for attempting to cash meal checks twice). It’s not really a zero tolerance policy if you’re willing to tolerate that kind of previous history to begin with.

Putting winning before the safety of others can backfire. And beyond the potential physical consequences, there are possible legal ones.

After a somewhat similar situation at the University of Oregon, a student is suing the school.

She alleges she was sexually assaulted by former basketball players Dominic Artis, Brandon Austin and Damyean Dotson. The three would not face criminal charges, but the school found them “responsible for sexual misconduct.”

As Saban has argued, plenty of players have succeeded with fresh starts. But each time a school brings on a player who’s been accused of violent crime, it knows exactly the gamble that it’s taking.