BYU’s Brandon Davies, a 6’9″ 235-lb starting forward for the top five-ranked Cougars has been suspended for the remainder of the season for violating BYU’s strict Honor Code. Davies admitted to Brigham Young University officials that he and his girlfriend engaged in pre-marital sex. The suspension, announced Wednesday, will include the post-season conference and NCAA tournaments.
Davies had been averaging 11.2 points and 6.1 rebounds this year this for the Cougars and was a major force behind their 27-2 record and possible number-one seed in the tournament as well as a potential run to the Final Four. All that is in jeopardy now.
Thursday night, New Mexico dismantled the Cougars, 84-62, a possible sign of trouble to come for the suddenly undermanned BYU squad. Live by the Honor Code, die by the Honor Code.
“This is who we are, and most people that come to this school, hopefully all, understand that it is one of the reasons they come to BYU,” said Tom Holmoe, BYU’s Athletic Director, at a news conference following the suspension. “We understand that people across the country might think this is foreign to them, and might be shocked or surprised. But we deal with this quite often.”
The BYU Honor Code is a forbidding list of restrictions that every BYU student agrees to upon becoming a student. The Code applies to both Mormon and non-Mormon students.
“We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men,” the Code states. “If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things, the Honor Code states. It continues:
- Be honest
- Live a chaste and virtuous life
- Obey the law and all campus policies
- Use clean language, respect others
- Abstain from alcoholic beverages, tobacco, tea, coffee, and substance abuse
- Participate regularly in church services
- Observe the dress and grooming standards
- Encourage others in their commitment to comply with the Honor Code
Although it may seem Draconian, at least one observer of college ethics supports BYU’s handling of the situation. “I give the school credit,” Donald McCabe was quoted as saying in The Salt Lake City Tribune. McCabe is a professor of business and writer on issues affecting higher education. “They laid out their rules, they were violated and they stuck to their guns. The student was forewarned and he knew what the penalty would be, and he took his chances.”
While no definitive reports have yet surfaced as to how Davies was turned in to authorities, or even if he turned himself in, a variety of sources on Friday released the name of his girlfriend, Danica Mendivil, a volleyball player at Arizona State University, and like Davies, a native of Utah. Early reports indicated Mendivil might be pregnant, which her family has since denied.
Davies is part of a very small African-American contingent of blacks in the LDS church. As recently as 1978 the last formal bans were lifted against African-Americans who wanted to serve as bishops or in other LDS church leadership positions. Davies was born in Philadelphia and adopted by a white Mormon family who raised him in Provo as a member in good-standing of the LDS church.
While no hard data is available, church observers have said African-Americans comprise less than one percent of LDS church membership.
Image here.
Whether Davies’ punishment was more severe because of the interracial nature of his and Mendivil’s relationship will remain speculative, but this is the second major Honor Code violation in two years to rock BYU athletics.
In 2010, the Cougars’ all-time leading rusher Harvey Unga was kicked off the football team and withdrew from school for having a sexual relationship with Keilani Moeaki, a BYU women’s basketball player.
When I first ran across this handy guide by Barbara Seegmiller in a used bookstore a year ago, I fell in love with its kooky vintage greatness, for it is certainly creative and fun-loving and by following its rules you’ll definitely get…results. Published in 1986 with help from the English Department of Brigham Young University, it features a stern lecture from the then Associate Dean of BYU on the pitfalls of boredom in youth and boy does it deliver.