Football is back — keep it clean

The crack of the pads and the tweets of the coach’s whistle echo across the practice fields this time of year. Football is back.

Yes, the Olympics were big and the Grizzlies had their run in the NBA playoffs, but in the South there is nothing to match the start of football season. The sport is clearly No. 1 in the hearts of many. The rivalries, the thrills, the excitement of the season bring families together in high schools and fill stadiums on college campuses.

Football is also a big business, and the potential is always there for big problems. Unfortunately, Memphis got a whiff of the problems in the last few days.

A Wooddale High School counselor admitted to doctoring a prize football player’s high school transcript last year. Now the counselor has lost his job and the player, a standout for Auburn University in Alabama, is under investigation.

Jovon Robinson’s mother is sticking up for her son. She says he’s a hard worker and professes surprise that somebody tinkered with his grades. But the fact remains, football has a way of exerting undue pressure on kids, their parents and schools.

And when the line is crossed, when athletic abilities aren’t enough to win a scholarship or a game, that’s when the oily underside of the game becomes visible and has the potential to do great damage.

Robinson, a talented player who already has caught the attention of Auburn’s head coach, could end up losing out on a fantastic opportunity to play college football and get a college education because of what happened at Wooddale High.

And, in another worrisome development in Memphis, the NCAA has twice sent representatives to city schools in the last few months to talk to coaches and look into the way football programs are run here.

Memphis is a hot recruiting area for college football coaches. According to the high school recruiting website Rivals.com, 18 of the top 25 high school football prospects in Tennessee this year are from Memphis. That’s a load of talent that many colleges will covet.

The baseline for any college recruit must be honesty — from the kid and from his school.

Not every football player has to be an academic genius, but no football player should get a gift — or a free pass — or a phoneyed-up transcript. That corrupts the kid and the game.