LAWRENCE, Kansas – What has gotten into the Kansas Jayhawks? Two incidents of fighting between members of the school’s football and basketball teams in less than 24 hours are inexcusable and embarrassing.

At a time when Kansas football has started their season 3-0, breaking into the top 20 in all polls, and Kansas basketball is the preseason number one, these guys should be enjoying themselves and prepping for opponents.

Instead, word spreads of an altercation involving guard Tyshawn Taylor and other players on both teams. It turns out that, according to a KU Public Safety report published on the Lawrence-Journal World website, an argument involving 8 people escalated to an all out fight with more than 100 people present.

Although the report mentions members of the football and basketball teams, no one was specifically named. Taylor’s involvement was only confirmed after he was treated at Lawrence Memorial Hospital for a dislocated finger and then had the presence of mind to confirm the cause of the injury – throwing a punch – on his now-deleted Facebook page.

Coach Bill Self, who was reportedly away on a recruiting trip, told ESPN.com that Taylor could miss 3-4 weeks due to the injuries.

Yet another fight between the teams broke out around 10 a.m. this morning in the heart of the KU campus, between Wescoe and Budig Halls. The University Daily Kansan, whose offices are conveniently located only a very short distance from where the latest altercation occurred, reported an eyewitness account of “one of the Morris twins push[ing] a football player down stairs behind Budig Hall.”

The subsequent pictures of the events just add to the spectacle and stupidity of it all. Everyone heard about the fight last night, multiple national media outlets picked up on it. So, why on Earth would you fan the flames with something even more visible this morning?!

Had this died down after last night, everyone could have survived. There were no pictures, few witnesses and even fewer people willing to come forward. When you pull a stunt in the middle of the morning on a Wednesday, who isn’t going to see it?

The UDK had two photographers on the scene before there was even time for the Athletic Department to clear the area. The Journal-World has since reported a meeting between KU Police Captain Schulyer Bailey and Athletic Director Lew Perkins.

After I witnessed Kansas center Cole Aldrich being driven either to or from class by Assistant Coach Joe Dooley, it also appears that Kansas Athletics is taking added precautions to keep the situation under control. But it’s too little too late.

When reports surfaced of the fight last night, members of both coaching staffs should have called team meetings to tell their players to keep their heads on straight. Yes, these kids are young and prone to making dumb mistakes. There’s no denying that. So, it’s up to the ones actually getting paid to remind them of what is at stake.

These staffs dropped the ball. They didn’t act swiftly. Now they’re paying the price.

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UPDATE 5:30 p.m. CT

Captains of the two teams have released a joint statement regarding the fights last night and this morning. As has already been noted in comments on the Lawrence Journal-World website, the players representing each team – Cole Aldrich and Sherron Collins (basketball); Kerry Meier, Todd Reesing, Jake Sharp and Darrell Stuckey (football) –  were largely not the ones directly involved in the fights.

Frankly, this seems like the obvious move to have made last night. If they didn’t need the guys who were actually fighting to be present, then why wait until late this afternoon? Now it really looks like mommy and daddy had to get involved because this sibling rivalry wasn’t going to settle down on its own. Let’s be honest here. The damage has already been done. It doesn’t mean this will plague both teams well into the future, but the PR black eye is still there.

Filed under: College, Opinion/Editorial