From the bench...49er athletes are restricted by contract

A few Cal State Long Beach student-athletes decide to have a party to welcome the crop of rookies to the squad. They mix alcohol into the celebration. This occurs during a pre-season retreat into the wilderness of Northern California and it happens before - and I stress before - school starts. As a result, they and 49ers coach Andy Sythe were suspended from a cross country meet Saturday. I find that to be wrong.

While I can understand student-athletes having to abide by certain rules, they should be allowed to live as they choose away from the playing fields.

Instead, each athlete at CSULB is required to sign a contract which states that he or she won't drink alcohol during the athletic season. However, the cross country season had not officially started, just the pre-season training.

Drinking alcohol does take a toll on the physical body and I can understand why a coach would like his or her charges to refrain from drinking. But the concept of the contract to regulate student athletes goes against one of the primary missions of any university Ñ creating responsible, educated members of society that are capable of making decision that affect their lives.

Student-athletes should be able to have fun without campus administrators looking over their shoulders. Coaches and administrators can't baby-sit athletes 24 hours a day, and thus they can't know when the athletes, or should I say adults, drink or do something else that is not appropriate according to the contract.

I don't condone student-athletes doing something illegal or anyone abusing harmful substances. But there is less wrong with an adult having a few drinks than there is with a policy that takes away the right to make a decision about what goes into a person's body themselves.

Has anyone else noticed the parity this year in college football? In the 1970s and '80s, the Big Eight Conference was dubbed the Big Two because of the dominance of Oklahoma and Nebraska.

Now, the conference is more wide open with the ascending play of Colorado, Kansas and Kansas State. Who knows, maybe Kansas State can even play in the Orange Bowl with a few lucky breaks from other teams.

Brigham Young used to be the only powerhouse in the Western Athletic Conference. But this year, Colorado State and Utah are making a point to the conference and the rest of the nation that they can be just as good.

For once, BYU won't go to the Holiday Bowl, or should I say the BYU Bowl, which is the home of the WAC champion.

Another example is the PAC-10 conference. We all know where UCLA is - the bottom. USC is still in the fight to win the conference, but there's a good chance that either Arizona or Washington State will play in the Rose Bowl come Jan. 2.

It sure would be a strange occurrence for the granddaddy of all bowl games to see a team other than USC, UCLA or Washington.

Loren Kopff is the sports editor for the Daily Forty-Niner. His column will appear regularly.