Cal State Northridge Took a Shot in the Ethics Department : Apologies and discipline are in order in football cover-up

The simplest lessons apparently are the most difficult to learn. That surely is now evident to the Cal State Northridge officials who concocted a lie to shield a football player wounded in a shooting at a party. Their ruse backfired, of course, bringing disgrace to themselves, CSUN athletics and the university as a whole.

CSUN football Coach Dave Baldwin initially told reporters that running back Shayne Blakey would use a redshirt season to recover from an appendectomy. Blakey, in fact, is recovering from a gunshot wound suffered Aug. 9 at a party in West Hills, something Baldwin and others knew long before releasing the statement to reporters.

Baldwin has admitted his lie. “Regardless of the circumstances, I am wrong,” the coach said. “I’m a disgrace to myself.”

Athletic Director Paul Bubb also admitted that he knew of the falsehood as it developed.

And Blakey, who said he was shot after arguing about a cover fee charged at the party, said he went along with Baldwin’s explanation. “I’m not too familiar with the policies for protecting a program, but I don’t think it was a bad decision,” he told Times reporter Tris Wykes.

Police, for their part, said no charges were filed in the shooting because some witnesses said Blakey might have prompted the attack by himself pointing a pellet gun. Blakey denied that he had a gun.

To the credit of CSUN, President Blenda J. Wilson issued a statement Monday indicating the university was conducting its own investigation, promising discipline and reiterating university commitment to ethical behavior.

And later in the week, both Bubb and Baldwin apologized in separate letters addressed to members of the CSUN campus community.

In her statement, Wilson said: “Among the highest values in a university community is respect for truth. It is essential to scholarship, to the teacher / student relationship, and to the strengthening of character and ethical reasoning in each of us. There can be no exceptions to this principle.”

We agree. But an exception did occur, and it is a tremendous breach of the trust the public has placed in public institutions such as CSUN, funded, remember, by taxpayer dollars.

Everyone who knew about this lie or participated in the cover-up shares responsibility and must be held accountable, by the university and by the public.

This includes Bubb, Baldwin, the sports information office, and even Blakey, despite his youth. Blakey bears responsibility for his own actions, but he has also been failed by his elders, those who should have served as role models but who showed themselves lacking in judgment.

Disciplinary measures are in order for all, and public apologies are due. The onus is on CSUN to correct now what can be corrected and then to set a course for the future that ensures against repeat. Anything less will severely compromise the integrity and value of an educational institution too essential to the San Fernando Valley area to suffer any compromise at all.