From Inside a Police Car, a New Perspective

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By SARA LIPKA

When Brendan Watkins, a defensive lineman on the Davidson College football team, told his father he had been spending time with the campus police, the man thought his son was in trouble. In fact, Mr. Watkins was staying out of trouble.

Davidson's football players rode along with campus police officers last winter to learn to avoid off-field problems. The program shows one of the various ways that athletics departments are trying to influence athletes' behavior.

Davidson's football team did not have a bad reputation, but it was not squeaky clean. A couple of years ago, some of Mr. Watkins's teammates were arrested for tearing down light poles on the campus. Police officers remember more than one rowdy party.

When Tripp Merritt became the team's head coach last summer, he told players he expected them to become upstanding members of the community. They have since painted a Little League fence together and planned a "Family Fun Fest" for local children. After their season ended last year, the coach laid out a calendar and asked players to sign up for a Friday or Saturday night on police patrol.

The players did not know what to expect. "A few of the guys were really hoping to see us get into something," says Ronnie L. Hersey, one of the officers with whom players rode.

On one Friday night, Mr. Watkins followed an officer into a dormitory to investigate a noise complaint. "Everybody was wondering what I was doing there," he says with a laugh.

Players shadowed the officers as they broke up several loud campus parties. But some players got a taste of more than basic noise violations. One watched an officer confront a belligerent student who was attempting to steal a rake from the baseball field. Another had to be dropped off early to steer clear of a drug bust.

Team members say they came away with a better appreciation of what police deal with. And some say they have modified their own behavior after watching other people act up. A handful of players have also started advocating for good conduct among their peers. At a spring party, some students were getting rowdy, pushing each other back and forth. Derrick Thompson, an offensive lineman, stepped in to prevent the incident from escalating.

"Me and one of my teammates said, 'Hey, y'all, just chill out,'" he says. "'We don't need to get into that kind of situation tonight.'"

Several players asked to ride around with police again this spring, and the coach plans to require the team to go out again next year.

The experience gave players a new outlook on campus safety, says Fountain L. Walker, Davidson's director of public safety.

"You're always going to have issues," he says. But now players have "a different mind-set in dealing with a situation where the police are involved."