Turn Up the Orange | UTEP sports talk

UTEP athletics and the gun issue

The El Paso Times reported Tuesday that the Texas Senate tentatively approved a measure that would allow students, professors, staff members and visitors on public college campuses to carry guns in classrooms and dorms.

The bill was sparked by the mass shootings in 2007 at Virginia Tech that took the lives of 33 people, including the shooter.

Legislators who support the bill, written by state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, say Texans on university campuses should have the ability to protect themselves. The bill has 13 days to clear the House in this legislative session and become law.

Texans have been able to carry concealed handguns since 1996, but existing law prohibits guns on college campuses.

There’s been no word, and rightfully so, from UTEP on how this possible law will impact members of its athletic teams.

Miner sports teams have kept their noses relatively clean when it comes to guns. There have been off-the-field issues, sure. But not many of them have involved shootings. And suspected gun trouble in another city was probably enough to keep a five-star defensive lineman off the team.

So where will UTEP stand on this issue? Let players execute their rights? Or Second Amendment be damned?

At the University of Miami, head football coach Randy Shannon adopted a zero-tolerance policy toward guns when he took over in 2007.

The school bans its students from possessing legally owned guns on campus, not off of it, however.

But Shannon went a step further. If a player owns a gun, he’s done.

“Everybody deals with things differently,” Shannon said in 2008. “It may be wrong or it may be right, but that's just the way I feel.”

Shannon says not a single player-gun incident has occurred at Miami since he instituted the policy. This after a slew of incidents throughout the previous 20 years that tainted the Hurricane program’s image, the most recent coming in 2006. On July 21 of that year, reserve safety Willie Cooper was shot when confronted in his yard by an unknown person who fled after roommate and safety Brandon Meriweather (now with the New England Patriots) returned gunfire.

Meriweather wasn’t charged as he owned the gun legally.

Guns on campus are obviously a divisive issue. But it also might be something UTEP coaches and players will have to start thinking about soon.

UTEP football podcast

It's spring football time, and the El Paso Times sports podcast crew is ready.

Talking about UTEP football following last weekend's spring game is Joe Muench, Bret Bloomquist, Pablo Villa and John Erfort.

To listen to the podcast, click here. (Or, to download, right click and save-target-as).