49ers President Avoids Direct Comment On Domestic Violence Controversy During Ethics In Sport Symposium
SANTA CLARA (KCBS) - Moral character is a key factor the San Francisco 49ers consider in recruiting players, a top team official said Thursday, acknowledging the difficulty of accurately assessing how an athlete will ultimately behave on and off the field.
The controversy over domestic violence in football dominated a conference on sports and ethics where 49ers President Paraag Marathe on Thursday delivered the keynote address, a speaking engagement Santa Clara University booked months before defensive tackle Ray McDonald's arrest for alleged domestic violence.
Marathe refused to directly address questions about McDonald or domestic violence, instead describing how the team arrives at its judgments about the character of players it wants to sign.
"We spend, I would say, 80 or 90 percent of the time evaluating players on that mental aspect, of how cohesive of a team member are they going to be," he said.
"Obviously you do the best you can to figure who would be a positive influence on a club, but sometimes you're wrong."
49ers President Avoids Ray McDonald Controversy In Speech On Ethics In Sport
Marathe told those gathered at the annual Sports, Law and Ethics Symposium the goal sought out players who would be "a net positive, not a detriment" to the team.
The Niners have faced growing calls to discipline McDonald. CEO Jed York has said any sanction from the team would come only after the legal process ends.
"Ray McDonald is NOT Ray Rice," York has said, adding that each incident is its "own separate case."
One of the conference organizers, former US Women's Soccer player Brandi Chastain, said the controversy underscores how the culture of all professional sports, not just the National Football League, needs to change.
"Everybody has to stand up and be accountable for their actions and their words," she said.
Male athletes in particular, Chastain said, live in a bubble where ordinary rules often do not apply, thus the need for greater transparency in the NFL.
"Those people who have the lime light, those people who are special in what they do," she said, "they have to be accountable under the same rules as everybody else."
