NAACP Investigating Suspension of Athletes : Purdue Punishes Black Football Players After Fight With Whites, Who Were Not Disciplined

An NAACP chapter says it is looking into the suspension of six black football players at Purdue University in connection with a March 18 brawl with members of the school’s wrestling team.

The six football players were punished, but the three wrestlers, who are white, were not disciplined.

“Our concern is that the six football players were treated unfairly,” said Carl Briscoe, the chairman of the Political Action Committee of the Lafayette chapter of the NAACP.

“Only six football players were identified and disciplined.”

4 Ineligible to Play

Four of the players--guards Scott Conover and Larry Taylor, defensive back Tony Brown and tight end Kelly Turner--were suspended for the fall semester, making them ineligible for the 1989 season. All are appealing their suspensions and hope to learn their fate before practice begins Aug. 14.

Defensive backs Steve Jackson and Jarrett Scales were suspended for the summer semester and are eligible this season.

The brawl occurred at a party in an on-campus house where three Purdue wrestlers and three non-athletes lived. An argument between a football player and a wrestler escalated into a fight in a nearby parking lot, Briscoe said.

The football players left but returned to retrieve a jacket. When they re-entered the house, officials said, the altercation again erupted.

Briscoe said the wrestlers struck the football players with bottles, punched them in the face and taunted them with racial slurs. But a witness said that the football players returned to the party with sticks and that one of them broke the jaw of the brother of one of the wrestlers.

Police File No Charges

Local police filed no formal charges. The incident led to on-campus hearings by the dean of students’ office in April.

“Each individual student complained of racial, derogatory and ethnic statements of personal character,” Briscoe said.

“We’re not suggesting that the football players are innocent but were treated unfairly. It takes two to fight.”

Purdue’s vice president for university relations, Joe Bennett, said race was not an issue in the disciplining of the football players.