Too often media mislabels athletes' deplorable acts

	If allegations about Michael Vick's involvement in a dog-fighting ring are true, that would qualify as more than and "off-the-field problem." Simon Bruty/SI

Humpty Dumpty: When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.

Alice: The question is, whether you can make words mean so many different things.

Humpty Dumpty: The question is: which is to be master -- that's all.

-- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

I reference the above passage because there are a couple phrases that sports fans and media figures need to become masters of again. These phrases, through repeated usage, have acquired meanings they were never meant to have.

Those phrases would be: "off-the-field problems" and "character issues."

Those phrases should only be used to refer to misdeeds that are not criminal. For example: being late for meetings, not showing up for mandatory autograph sessions, insulting teammates in the press, mouthing off to your coaches, and taking a coach's assigned parking spot.

You could even include a few things Terrell Owens hasn't done.

But the terms "off-the-field problems" and "character issues" should not be applied to, say, accusations of inciting a fight that leads to a triple shooting. Nor should it apply to intimations that someone is supporting a large dog-fighting operation.

These are not "character problems." They are something worse.

The proper meaning of these phrases began slipping away around the time Kobe Bryant was facing rape charges in Colorado. Basketball announcers would refer to his "off-the-court problems." You could argue that this was acceptable shorthand for a situation everyone knew about. But it was also a whitewash. It was a euphemism that hid meaning rather than expressed it. Using the phrase "off-the-court problems" rather than "rape charges" is exactly what his agent and his publicist -- and the NBA and its broadcast partners, for that matter -- would have preferred. That phrase didn't force you to think about the ugly crime of which he had been accused.

Another ugly crime: dog-fighting. Atlanta quarterback Michael Vick is now being investigated after sixty-six dogs and dog-fighting equipment were found on a property he owned. Vick has denied any wrongdoing, pointing the finger at his cousins who lived there.