AN EL-DUMB THING

Khalid El-Dope.

That's said without a trace of flippancy or the slightest attempt at humor.

Dope is what Khalid El-Amin was allegedly carrying. Dope is what he was
allegedly driving around Hartford with and a dope is what he was Tuesday
afternoon when he was allegedly caught with a small quantity of marijuana on
his person after apparently running a red light in Hartford.

Supposedly he and teammate Richard Hamilton were heading for a bite to eat
in Hartford when they were pulled over by the police. I have no reason to
believe or disbelieve that story. It's completely irrelevant.

The only thing that matters is that police reportedly found less than 4
ounces of marijuana in El-Amin's possession Tuesday.

Less than 4 ounces is the operative figure here because that separates the
crime between misdemeanor and felony. I'm not trying to make El-Amin out to
be a hardened criminal here, but he apparently was a dope, not a dupe in
this incident. He's 19 years old, not 8, so please don't tell me he's not
accountable for his actions.

He's 19 with a wife and two children. He's a man.

And that man decided to put his reputation on the line by allegedly carrying
less than 4 ounces of marijuana. For what?

A misdemeanor that put his mug on virtually every sportscast across America
Tuesday night?

Friday night he was yucking it up with David Letterman on the Late Show,
endearing himself to basketball and non-basketball fans alike as a witty,
glib personality with a presence beyond his years. And that's an accurate
picture. He's charming and funny, not to mention a heck of a basketball player.

But by carrying a misdemeanor's worth of marijuana around in Hartford --
which will probably earn him probation and community service -- El-Amin
allowed his reputation to be sullied.

For what?

Smoking marijuana?

Socrates once wrote, "Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can
possibly be possessed of -- for credit is like fire; when once you have
kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you
will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again."

Much as the way the nation formed an unfortunate opinion of Nykesha Sales as
that lady who scored that controversial basket under illegitimate
circumstances two years ago, so Khalid El-Amin will be referenced by his
arrest for carrying marijuana Tuesday.

How much he was carrying is important only in a legal sense. He was busted
for drugs. That is the lasting memory and how he is being portrayed this
morning.

I've already heard people say that they hope El-Amin isn't so beat up by
this episode that he now wants to leave Connecticut and enter the NBA draft.
A week ago, he said he was returning for his junior season.

And I suspect over the next day or week or month, we're going to hear his
supporters tell us how this 19-year-old kid made a mistake and we are
over-reacting to an occurrence that probably happens 1,000 times
every day in cities across America.

Were he not Khalid El-Amin, basketball hero to so many people in this state,
we probably would be reading about this on the bottom of page 63 instead of
the front page of your morning newspaper. If at all. All of that is so. If
this were Joe Quinnipiac or Fred Fairfield, no one would give this matter
more than a once over.

But he is not your average person. He is Khalid El-Amin, college basketball
superstar, who, if not a role model to thousands of young boys and girls in
Connecticut, is a role model to his two children.

He simply can't allow himself to be placed in a situation like he was
Tuesday. He was not a victim. He was a dope. A self-inflicted dope.

(Dave Solomon is the sports columnist for the Register. Readers may write to
him at the New Haven Register sports department, 40 Sargent Drive, New Haven
06511.)