Thursday’s thumbs

A finger to the eye is not fair play

NWA DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

It’s time for another installment of Thursday’s thumbs:

Regular readers know this space on many Thursdays provides an opportunity for us and readers to reflect some cheers and jeers in the form of up- or downturned digits and we’re back at it again today. But we feel we got oneupped this week by Marlon Davidson, an Auburn Tigers football player. Razorback fans who saw the replays know Davidson let his finger do the talking as he reached his hand inside Hogs quarterback Ty Storey’s face mask after Storey was down. Here’s how Storey described it: “He definitely got a finger in my eye. It actually popped my contact out. I guess that’s part of the game. I thought it was kind of dirty.” Storey is wrong. It’s not kind of dirty. It’s really dirty, a prime example of unsportsmanlike behavior. And we’re sure former and current football players who read this might suggest we “toughen up, buttercup,” that boys will be boys and some such nonsense. Whether it’s done often or not doesn’t change a behavior’s nature. Sticking a finger in an opposing player’s eye is a cheap shot and contrary to the spirit of collegiate athletic competition. Last October, a Northern Illinois’ coach suspended a player after video showed he intentionally reached into an opposing player’s mask when that player was pinned under a pile and poked him in the eye. At least that team showed some integrity when faced with such an egregiously unsportsmanlike behavior. We haven’t heard anything from Auburn’s Gus Malzahn. Did the incident cost Arkansas the game? Hardly. That’s not the issue. Athletic programs should set a standard against cheating and stand on the right side of that standard when one of their own is discovered violating it. Football is a roughand-tumble sport. We wouldn’t have it any other way. Still, some things go beyond question — digging cleats into someone’s calf, digging an elbow into a player’s back at the bottom of the dogpile and poking fingers into eyes among them.

The provost of the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith described Myles Friedman as a “smart man who liked to challenge himself.” Clearly, he found success in doing so, and has now passed on the challenge to future generations. The late Friedman left $10.8 million to UAFS, a gift that will provide about $400,000 a year in scholarships for the school’s honors program. Friedman, a chemical engineer, was a Fort Smith High School graduate who began his college education at Fort Smith Junior College, predecessor of UAFS. He went on to the Massachussetts Institute of Technology. His success will now become opportunity for 50 or 60 students who can get fullride scholarships in the UAFS honors program now named in Friedman’s honor. What amazing generosity.

The debate over Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court is a partisan battle, to say the least. From the outside looking in, the sad fact is our representatives in Washington, D.C., and all the talking heads trying to nudge public opinion one way or the other don’t ultimately seem to care about what really happened so much as how the situation can be turned to one side’s or the other’s political advantage. Yes, important matters are mixed up in this. Yes, individuals lives are caught up in it. But doesn’t what actually happened seem secondary to the amount of turmoil one can gin up in the appointment process?

We’re glad to see judges resisting the moves of people like former State Sen. Jon Woods to delay serving their prison sentences solely on the basis that they plan to appeal some aspect of their cases. Same goes for 81-year-old Bill Cosby, the entertainer sentenced this week for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in 2004. Criminal defendants, if given the leeway, will seek to delay imposition of their sentences for as long as possible. Granting of such requests needs to be based on some reasonable expectation that their prosecution is hopelessly flawed. Short of that, let the punishment begin. Woods reported to federal prison authorities Wednesday.