In America, college football stars like Jameis Winston can do no wrong | Diane Roberts

Florida State Seminoles quarterback Jameis Winston (five) throws the ball as he is watched by Syracuse Orange defensive back Darius Kelly (18) for the duration of the game on 21 November. Photograph: Melina Vastola/USA Right now Sports activities

Just since an athlete performs miracles on the field does not indicate he is a saint off of it. The story of Jameis Winston is but one more instance of how quickly a town – and frankly an total nation – want desperately to side with a football star.

In December of last yr, a pupil at Florida State University told police that she had been sexually assaulted by Jameis Winston, a supremely talented quarterback and candidate for the Heisman Trophy, college football’s premier honor. Practically nothing was accomplished. She claims a cop warned that her life would be created “miserable” if she pursued charges. Tallahassee, in which the university is located, is a “big football town”.

The cops claim she stopped cooperating with them, which she disputes. On 12 November this yr, the case was turned above to the State Attorney’s workplace: media retailers had sniffed out the story, and the regional police realized that carrying out absolutely nothing about an assault allegation towards a common football player might seem like a cover-up. A forensic check was (ultimately) carried out, revealing that Winston’s DNA matched that discovered on the victim’s garments. His lawyer says the sex was consensual. Her attorney says it was not. The State Attorney is still investigating.

School football’s most passionate adherents are not, even so, waiting till the information are in. They are assured Jameis Winston, this self-effacing, effectively-mannered Alabama boy with the the sweet smile and the golden arm, would by no means do this kind of a thing. The younger woman should be mistaken she must be jealous of his “real” girlfriend, a basketball player at Rice University in Texas she must be some gold-digger desperate for focus. The web heaves with conspiracy theories: her lawyer graduated from the University of Florida, the hated arch-rival of Florida State University. Probably someone at the University of Alabama – Florida State’s most likely opponent in the nationwide championship game – put her up to it. Heck, maybe it really is Barack Obama’s fault.

In any situation, the youthful girl, also a student at Florida State (or she was until she left campus earlier this 12 months) is obtaining trashed all more than the place: on sports activities sites, in newspaper comment sections, in bars exactly where followers hang out. She’s getting named a “ho”, a “liar”, a “groupie”. FSU is on the cusp of greatness, an undefeated season. What if this chick goes and ruins everything?

Given that the allegations grew to become public, supporters have taken to holding up homemade signs at Florida State games: “We Support Popular Jameis”, “Jameis is Innocent,” and “In Jameis Christ We Pray”. The neighborhood paper has quite significantly abandoned any pretense of even-handedness in favor of cheerleading. The executive editor sighed in print that he wished the story would go away, but considering that some horrid “nationwide media outlet,” which does not “care a whit about our local community, our university, our group or the younger man numerous of us – me included – have discovered to care about,” is covering it, his paper greater had as nicely. Their “coverage”, nonetheless, consists of daily assurances that the evidence towards Winston is thin, dissertations on how hard it is to show sexual battery, and lamentations over the unfair way the “drive-by” media depicts “our local community”.

The 1 honorable exception, a column by veteran writer Gerald Ensley, wrestles with the unpleasant disparity amongst Winston’s charm and the youthful woman’s claims. It elicited howls of outrage from readers threatening to cancel their subscriptions, insulting Ensley, and wishing the newspaper would not even mention the scandal. It’s been 14 years considering that Florida State won a national championship: the Seminoles have got a huge game against the Gators Saturday, then the Atlantic Coast Conference championship then, maybe, the nationwide championship in January. Even several fair-minded seekers right after of justice are hoping that possibly the State Lawyer will both wait a couple of months – or declare the situation closed.

The total issue seems, as one particular magazine opined, like “To Destroy a Mockingbird in reverse”. Now the local community rises up to defend Our Football Hero. It’s a theme that is playing out all also often in the US, even at higher schools like Steubenville, Ohio where a teenage girl discovered herself fighting towards not just her football enjoying aggressors, but school administrators and the town at massive who were fast to side with the male athletes.

Give Winston’s partisans credit for holding company to the ancient principle of presumption of innocence: Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat. As a lot of point out, he hasn’t but been charged, a lot much less located guilty of something. But neither has the woman who says she was raped. Winston’s receiving the really like she’s getting known as a slut. In this culture, playing top-tier football confers a layer of privilege not accorded ordinary guys, specifically ordinary younger African American guys. Rather of a hoodie, perhaps Trayvon Martin must have worn a letter jacket.

In America, college football stars like Jameis Winston can do no wrong | Diane Roberts