UNABASHEDLY, THIS ACT DONE BY REAL DOPE

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, Sports Columnist For The Register