Canzano: Making a pitch for decency when it comes to Oregon State pitcher Luke Heimlich
BY JOHN CANZANO
The Oregonian/OregonLive
It's wrong. So wrong. On so many levels -- wrong. Let's start the discussion on what most of us learned about Luke Heimlich right there.
I'm deeply troubled by what was revealed today by a terrific piece of journalism. I'm troubled that an Oregon State baseball program I respected so much is now trotting out a registered sex offender to pitch for it. I'm troubled that so many apologists are so busy talking about the promising left-handed pitcher that they're forgetting the promising little girl victimized by him five years ago. And beyond all that, I'm troubled by the notion that Heimlich has been on campus since 2014 and it looks like Oregon State learned the facts of this case around the same time you did.
This from the story:
As a teenager, Heimlich pleaded guilty to a single charge of sexually molesting a 6-year-old female family member. The girl told investigators that inside Heimlich's bedroom, he pulled down her underwear and "touched her on both the inside and outside of the spot she uses to go to the bathroom," according to court records.
"She said that she told him to stop, but he wouldn't," the documents state, and that "it hurt" when he touched her.
Oregon State will want to hear more. Maybe it will even get a copy of the court file or try speak with the little girl's mother. The reporter did both. Maybe OSU should hire Danny Moran and Brad Schmidt, the reporters who broke the story, to do background on all its athletes. The university apparently didn't do enough, and is now in full damage-control mode, refusing to acknowledge publicly when it learned it had a registered sex offender on the mound.
What would Brenda Tracy think? How would she feel? Tracy was among my first thoughts after reading the story. Oregon State did so much right after it learned how badly it bungled the investigation of her
1998 gang rape involving four men, two of them Beavers' football players.
I was in the room when university president Dr. Edward Ray made the drive from Corvallis to Portland to apologize to her in person. I felt his sincerity. And why not? He'd sat so strongly as the chair of the NCAA Executive committee, hammering Penn State with a four-year bowl ban and a $60 million fine. Ray is at the forefront of the battle on campus to value human life above athletics achievement.
So I called Tracy, who now works as a consultant for OSU. She was in tears. She'd been in the comment section of the piece on OregonLive.com, sifting through the reaction of so many concerned this story might derail OSU's journey toward Omaha.
"That little girl matters," Tracy said. "I am furious that people are thinking about him, and not her. People keep asking, 'What about his second chance?' and 'When does he get to move on with his life?' And all I can think about is that now 11-year old girl, 'What about her? When does she get to move on?'"
I reached out to Dr. Ray. I told him how troubled I was, especially by a sentence in the story that indicated Oregon State likely doesn't know how many felons it currently has playing on its athletics teams.
It doesn't know how many? Really?
The Beavers' sports programs run camps for young children. Some of the athletes participate in the camps. I have three daughters, if one of them attends a camp in Corvallis I'd want to know a registered sex offender or a person convicted of a violent crime wasn't in contact with any of them. There are so many troubling layers to this, and none of them should start with, "He's a really good pitcher..." because if you're doing that, you need a time out.
Strip away the baseball. Remove the MLB Draft. And we're left with a simple equation -- a little girl was molested by a person who admitted he did it. As much as second chances are important, I don't know how anyone could put the sex offender's future first.
Oregon State shouldn't have a single athlete on its campus who is guilty of a felony conviction involving a violent offense or a sex offense. Dr. Ray is on record there, leading the charge in instituting a ban of athletics transfers who had conduct issues. Dr. Ray said on the subject in Sept. 2015, "There ought to be a way to set guidelines that approach what seems intuitively right and sensible."
That ban needs to extend to incoming freshman, and include all athletes, just to be clear. It needs to be part of the vetting process when the university is recruiting. And it needs to be non-negotiable.
To be clear: We're talking about a crime that involved a high school kid who molested a kindergarten child. If you're among those dismissing this as a youthful "mistake" from a kid who deserves a second chance at his baseball career, think first about the damage done to the survivor, who will carry this with her for life. Heimlich's professional baseball career isn't jeopardized by this. He'll move on just fine, no doubt drafted this summer by a team that decides it can live with it. But it's Oregon State that has a chance to make a strong statement now. Something stronger than the surprised and shocked expression they're sporting this week.
Implement new policy.
Perform routine background checks on all current and incoming athletes.
Do better.
t's a moment that begs for a stand. Especially given how much we've been told about Oregon State being a leader on the subject of sex offenses. The hypocrisy of saying such a thing while starting a registered sex offender on the mound is appalling.
"They have to do the right thing," Tracy said. "They have to value human life. I say that over and over and over. I keep saying that what they did for me was amazing. They've done right by me. But that has to be for everyone.
"It has to be for that little girl, too."