This Isn’t Good Sign for Bruins

Of the many assumed physical skills possessed by the 17 current and former UCLA football players who allegedly used handicapped parking placards, we now know this:

They can most assuredly run.

In the two weeks since the news broke, they have sprinted from their responsibilities as citizens, sprinted from a chance to learn, fled from an opportunity to teach.

Some of these are kids understandably running from fear.

Which makes it even more difficult to stomach the sight of adults standing behind them, shielding them, telling them to run even faster.

This includes the UCLA administration, from Chancellor Albert Carnesale to Athletic Director Pete Dalis. Neither has any problem asking the players to stand tough on the football field but apparently don’t think such mandates apply in the community.

This also includes the attorneys for the players who will be arraigned Wednesday, suits who may be trying to cut a deal when the only deal left is the truth.

And this includes adults named Cade McNown, Skip Hicks and Larry Atkins, all former UCLA players who could use their NFL platform to admit fault and effect change, yet won’t.

McNown, of the Chicago Bears, has gone so far as to condemn not himself or his teammates, but this newspaper, thereby throwing his first professional third-down pass directly into the stands.

“It’s sad for the program but, you know, it’s not exactly what it seems,” said former Bruin guard Andy Meyers, who was not among the alleged placard users. “The guys who used the handicapped passes, they didn’t use them to park in the handicapped spaces. They just used them to get into the lots. They just did it to save money.”

We have heard this.

We have heard that the UCLA kids were merely following the lead of the NBA players who worked the scam while playing summer basketball at Pauley Pavilion.

We have heard that many students at UCLA--not only athletes--have used the same trick in a desperate effort to make the best of a terrible parking situation.

We have heard that Coach Bob Toledo spoke to the team in the middle of last season, warning them against all sorts of parking violations.

We have heard it’s incredibly easy to obtain a handicapped placard, and that it was difficult for poor kids who can’t pay for parking to resist.

We have heard lots of things.

Just none of them from the players.

Only five are under 21, nullifying the argument that we are dealing with innocent children. All come from a program that is supposedly sophisticated enough to teach them better.

One explanation from one guy, and this whole mess could have been fixed.

One admission from a UCLA football player saying they do not really believe they are superior to the physically challenged members of our society, that they made a childish mistake, that they are sorry.

One public, vivid reminder to everyone who has ever exploited a disabled parking space that this is shameful for even the most supposedly important of us.

One word before next week’s court date, when such explanations will be required. One word that comes from the heart instead of the gavel.

Instead, there has been only silence.

That, and jokes.

Did you hear that for every big play next year, the UCLA players are going to get little blue wheelchair stickers on their helmets?

The only player quote has come from someone who for several years has been built up around here as a strong leader, a title that now seems premature.

McNown told the Chicago Tribune that he indeed had a handicapped placard from February through mid-June of 1997.

During that time, although he said he had been injured, he completed 18 passes in one spring game while leading the team throughout spring practice.

But he did not apologize, he rationalized.

“I didn’t use it for handicapped spaces,” he told the Tribune. “I can count on one hand the number of times I used it at all.”

He didn’t express remorse, he expressed anger.

And not at himself, but at this newspaper.

“Mentioning it at the same time [as the other players currently involved] is not right,” he said. “For lack of better words, I’ve been defamed.”

He’s right. This newspaper owes him an apology.

It’s one thing to write about defensive backs and linebackers and offensive linemen who seek to take parking spaces from the disabled.

But how dare we pick on the quarterback.

This incident has taught the community much about the disabled.

It has taught us even more about the sort of people who would take from them.

“It’s a shame this couldn’t have been handled differently,” Meyers said. “I don’t know why the police just couldn’t have come to the team when it realized there was a problem, and handled it that way instead of going so public.”

If these were normal students, that would have been the procedure.

But when they agree to accept the university’s athletic scholarship money, they also are agreeing to surrender some of that normalcy.

Like it or not, the actions of college athletes are more publicly scrutinized than college chemistry majors.

Nobody will listen or learn if a chemistry student is caught with an illegally obtained handicapped placard.

Everybody pays attention if it is a football player.

Every player knows this before he puts on his first pad.

Many times, in the case of academic deficiencies or homesickness or things that some kids just can’t avoid, this attention is unfortunate.

But in this case, the attention is deserved. This is a perfect opportunity to turn a whisper into a shout, to force people to acknowledge their treatment of the disabled, spreading a message about understanding and acceptance.

Nearly three years ago, the University of Rhode Island was presented with a somewhat similar opportunity, when six members of its football team allegedly beat up three members of a fraternity while 25 teammates stood guard outside the fraternity house.

Understanding that he needed to send a message about campus violence and the importance of athletes as role models, President Robert Carothers unilaterally forfeited the next game even before charges were filed.

Some UCLA fans will smirk and say, yeah, well, this is the same guy who later hired Jim Harrick.

Others will understand the importance of the precedent, and wonder why UCLA couldn’t have acted in similar haste.

The Bruins need to know, this is not just going to disappear.

This is not Lincoln, Neb., or Columbus, Ohio, or State College, Pa.

This is not a football town where the players are royalty and their foibles are excused and forgotten.

Two weeks later, people are still writing, still calling, still remembering images that grow more clear each day the players try to become more obscure.

One UCLA student still remembers the sight of a player’s girlfriend, having parked his luxury car in a handicapped space, clacking her high heels as she sprinted back to the car with a handicapped placard that she forgot to hang.

“We’ve seen so many players with those placards, we always thought that was part of their scholarship,” wrote the student.

Judging from the last two weeks, maybe it is.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.