McGill suspends running back Luis-Andres Guimont-Mota after charges of domestic violence

Canadian university football has been sucked into the growing controversy over football players and domestic violence, as star McGill Redmen running back Luis-Andres Guimont-Mota is facing charges including assault, robbery and uttering threats after his girlfriend reported Wednesday morning that he assaulted her. The Redmen have already suspended him from the football program and removed him from their online roster. That's a significant loss for them on the field, as Guimont-Mota was named a conference all-star last season and earned the Dan Pronyk Memorial Trophy in 2013 as the team's outstanding offensive player. Suspending him quickly is a smart move despite that on-field loss given the severity of these allegations, and one that puts McGill well ahead of some of the initial responses we saw in the NFL, but the university hasn't been as quick to act in the past.

It's notable that this isn't the first time Guimont-Mota has faced criminal charges. In fact, he was found guilty on an assault charge (one that dated back to 2010) last February and sentenced to 90 days in jail, but was allowed to serve that sentence in a way that didn't interfere with football. From The Montreal Gazette:

It's also notable that the McGill football program has previously run into off-field issues with its players and hasn't been as quick to respond as they were in this case. Three McGill football players were charged in April 2012 in relation to a sexual assault on a Concordia University student in November 2011 (including charges of sexual assault with a weapon and forcible confinement) , but were allowed to remain enrolled at the school and keep playing football. The university claimed to have only learned of those charges in May 2013, but elected not to proceed with code-of-conduct charges until the judicial process was resolved (it's still ongoing), and the three students involved kept playing football until quitting the team after The Gazette broke the news of their charges in November 2013. One of the three, Ian Sheriff, worked at the university's sports camp for children for three summers while facing those charges, only losing his job this summer once CBC reported on it.

Suspending Guimont-Mota from football instantly is logical for McGill given how much fire their football program has been under for these other incidents, but it's a dramatic change from how they've handled criminal charges in the past. Of course, one difference is that this case made the news with his name linked to it instantly, rather than months later. Still, perhaps this showcases a new direction in how McGill will handle off-field criminal charges going forward. They're not the only CIS school that faces that dilemma, though.

For example, last year saw three Laval Rouge et Or players (including starting quarterback Alex Skinner) were charged in relation to a summer bar fight two days after winning the Vanier Cup. (It's notable that a Laval spokeswoman said at the time the school's policy is not to suspend players until they're found guilty, though, so those players would have played last year regardless of when the charges were brought.) The Rouge et Or then announced in August that they would suspend Skinner for their first two games this year, and after replacement Hugo Richard played well, Skinner decided to quit the team in September (French), potentially preserving his eligibility to play at a another school next season. The case against him is still ongoing, with his next court date set for October 29.

Another notable case where a different approach was taken was at McMaster University in 2011, where the Marauders suspended star quarterback Kyle Quinlan indefinitely almost immediately after he was charged with several counts of assault (including assaulting a police officer) following an incident at a campus bar. That suspension wound up being for three games, and Quinlan then returned to lead the Maurauders to their first Vanier Cup victory over Laval that November. Those charges were later dropped in February and Quinlan pled guilty to a lesser charge of causing a disturbance, receiving a one-year conditional sentence that didn't leave him with a criminal record. He played for McMaster again in 2012, won the Hec Crighton as Canadian university football's top player, and led the Marauders back to the Vanier Cup that fall, where they lost to the Rouge et Or.

The Quinlan case in particular illustrates the complexities of some of these off-field discipline issues, and how even taking swift action doesn't necessarily work out perfectly. McMaster's decision to suspend Quinlan immediately was praised in some quarters, but the university then took some criticism for allowing him to return and play while still facing charges. The three-game suspension seems about right in the end considering that the most serious charges were dropped and that he only received a conditional sentence, but that wasn't known at the time.

In the end, McGill's indefinite suspension of Guimont-Mota immediately following this incident seems smart considering the severity of the charges, his problematic history (the 90 days in jail he was sentenced to in particular), and the amount of fire the program's been under. Anything less would have led to a lot of (deserved) criticism of their actions, and given the amount of time it often takes for cases to work their way through the Canadian courts (consider how the sexual assault case against the three former McGill players, brought in early 2012 following a 2011 incident, is still ongoing), waiting for a court verdict seems like an insufficient solution. Suspending players before cases work through the courts probably means that some innocent players will be punished, though. In cases where the charges are this serious, that's probably worth the tradeoff, but there may be other cases where it's a more difficult call for universities.