Roughriders make right call
Richard Griffin says leaving Smith off their playoff roster just the first step
hreatening to overshadow
the excitement of today’s CFL East semifinal in Montreal is the controversy surrounding a player who will not even be on the field at kickoff. The missing gladiator, the CFL’s worst nightmare, is HIVpositive middle linebacker Trevis Smith, recently identified by the RCMP for public safety reasons. The 29- year- old is free on bail while facing charges in a Surrey, B. C., court for aggravated sexual assault. Nobody should feel sorry for Smith. It doesn’t matter how it came to be that he originally contacted HIV, but once the virus was discovered, there instantly emerged, as there should be according to the law, an employer support group, some of whom are clearly of the generation that does not understand and would not tolerate HIV. The Smith support group that helped him keep his secret and continue to play likely included the team trainers and medical staff, team chairman Graham Barker, CFL commissioner Tom Wright and even his own tragically betrayed wife. They all kept his health secret, protecting him from the outside prejudices and tempests that
Teveryone knew would surely beset him if his illness was revealed — and they have. So, if the assault charges are true, if he sought unprotected sex outside his marriage, knowing his condition, then he blew that trust.
If this had been merely the case of a player being HIV- positive and uninformed opponents being afraid to be on the same field, then Smith should be allowed to play.
Website allAfrica. comexplains “ HIV cannot penetrate unbroken skin” and that “ people who have HIV/AIDS are not dangerous, unless you have sex with them, share skin-piercing instruments with them or receive their blood. So give them love and care.”
If this had been merely the case of a player facing pending charges of aggravated sexual assault lodged by a woman, not his wife, then Smith should be allowed to play.
For precedent, one need only look back as far as Kobe Bryant. His Lakers team sent him to a Colorado specialist for treatment of an injury and he ended up in a courtroom accused of sexual assault by a young resort employee. Not only did Bryant make it back to the basketball court as soon as he was ready, but the team’s owner loaned him his private jet to get back and forth during the trial. But instead, combine the two problems, then add the betrayal of team and league, but especially the trust of his wife and children, and the issue becomes much murkier. At what point does decency supersede the law? Did the Philadelphia Eagles not just make a similar decision with Terrell Owens? The loosecannon wide receiver did not break any laws, yet the Eagles chose, in the best long- term interests of the players and the franchise, to suspend him for the maximum four games and then send him home for the final five. All he did was disrespect a teammate.
T. O. broke a trust, just as much as did Smith. How tough would it have been for the former Alabama Crimson Tide defensive captain to zip it for six months of the season and continue his career in secret silence. Not just for his teammates, but his family. Have the Riders done the right thing by placing him on the inactive list? Yes. Smith’s next court appearance is slated for Nov. 16. Where does this sordid mess go from here for the player, the team and the city of Regina?
“ I think that we owe it to this great province and to this great franchise to ensure that the behaviour and the deportment and everything else affiliated with our club, through its management and through its coaches and through its players measures up to the very high standards of ethics and accountability that we have,” an obviously distressed Barker told CBC News. Smith should be released the day after the Grey Cup and allowed to look for a football job elsewhere. It likely won’t be in the CFL.