The Fumble of A Lifetime

Former sports- scholar's troubles turn a spotlight on the higher education community and whether officials should be doing more to groom their athletes for life off the field

BOULDER, Colo. — In 1992, Rae Carruth was given a football scholarship by officials here at the University of Colorado at Boulder. It was a chance for a rose to grow out of the hard cement streets on which Carruth grew up in the tough Oak Park neighborhood of Sacramen-to, Calif.
And he blossomed.
In the classroom, he maintained a B average. On the field, he was equally impressive, garnering 54 catches for 1,116 yards during his senior year.
Just the kind of kid who might qualify for Black Issues' annual Arthur Ashe Sports Scholars Awards. Not surprisingly, he did. In December 1993, Carruth made fourth team of the magazine's football scholars.
And his success didn't end there. The Carolina Panthers drafted him in 1997 as a first-round pick, giving him a $1 million signing bonus and making him a starting wide receiver.
But like every rose, it seems Carruth was destined to wilt.
Last December, he was charged with first-degree murder along with three other men in the brutal slaying of his pregnant girlfriend, Cherica L. Adams.
The high-profile case is one in a barrage of professional athletes accused of various criminal acts — a barrage that has left sports officials, fans and those who believe in the transformative power of education shaking their heads at the sad outcome of so many fallen heroes.
The whole ruckus has prompted sport academicians and sociologists to run statistics while other officials in the higher education world question if institutions could do more to groom the athletes they churn out.

The Fumble
"Rae was an outstanding student when he was here at the University of Colorado," remembers Dr. Evelyn Hu-Dehart, chair of the ethnic studies department. "He majored in English, graduated with honors and talked about wanting to write a novel."
George Hoey, who played professional football himself, was assistant athletic director at the university while Carruth was there. He says Carruth was a very likable young man who didn't get into any trouble while on campus. Friends say he had a special fondness for children and even befriended a young deaf boy.
A stark contrast to a man who police say conspired to kill the mother of his unborn child because of financial woes and naive associations with a seedy crowd.
Police reports say that on November 16, the 24-year-old Adams was shot four times in the neck and chest by a man in car that pulled up next to hers. She called 911 on a cellular phone and was taken to the hospital in critical condition. She was 30 weeks pregnant. The baby, Chancellor, miraculously survived. Adams did not.
But based on the information she and other suspects gave police, Carruth, now 25, awaits trial on charges of conspiracy to commit murder.
The case has shocked almost everyone who knew him.
"Rae, he's not a conflict guy; if anything, I think he avoids conflict," Maurice Henriques, a Boulder teammate, told The New York Times. "The Rae I knew would never be involved in something like that."