Texas Football, DWI, and Lessons Learned

It’s no secret that I’m a University of Texas sports fan.  My dad played baseball at UT, I have undergrad and law degrees from UT, my mom went to UT, and my younger brother went to UT.  I have two kids, each of whom knew the Eyes of Texas and Texas Fight by the time they were two.  Even my first dog was a beagle that had a lot of burnt orange.

So it was with great sadness that I read Sunday morning that a UT football player was arrested Sunday morning on charges of DWI.  By all accounts, the player is a good guy — he’s on the honor roll and regularly visits kids at the Dell Children’s Hospital.  But he made a mistake.

Yesterday, Austin American Statesman columnist Kirk Bohls had a great article reminding us to let that player’s arrest be a lesson to all of us.  He wrote:

Lamarr Houston became a statistic early Sunday.

And we’re not talking about his three tackles, two of them for losses in Texas’ season-opening football game.

The Texas defensive tackle was arrested and charged with drunken driving just hours after he played well in the Longhorns’ 52-10 win over Florida Atlantic.

There were more than 7,800 such arrests in Travis County alone in 2007. That’s up from 6,422 the preceding year.

So Houston’s got company. Too much of it.

And misery loves this company more than any other. In 2007, an estimated 12,998 Americans died in alcohol-related collisions, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

There but for the grace of God and cab fare go you and I.

I don’t always (or rarely) agree with Kirk Bohls, but I do hope that everyone takes a few minutes to read the article and let this incident be a reminder to be careful out there.

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