By Marty Kirkland
martykirkland@daltoncitizen.com
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Two Dalton High School football players arrested last week in Murray County are still on the team, but will be punished for their actions, Catamounts coach Matt Land said Wednesday.
The two players, John William “Trey” Craig III, 17, of 15 Birch St. in Dalton, and William Fletcher Kiker, 18, of 304 Bowen Place in Dalton, were arrested just before 4 a.m. last Thursday after being pulled over by a Murray County Sheriff’s Department deputy.
Craig was charged with DUI, underage consumption, open container, possession of a fake driver’s license and possession of a marijuana smoking pipe. Kiker, a passenger in the vehicle, was charged with underage consumption.
Craig is a receiver and Kiker a defensive back. Both will be seniors this season and both were also starters for Dalton’s baseball team this spring. Kiker, an outfielder, made The Daily Citizen’s All-Area Baseball Team and Craig earned honorable mention.
Land said neither was dismissed from the football team because it is the first violation of team rules for each.
“In the event of a first-time offense, we want to be sure that we give the young men an opportunity to be restored and provide them with any assistance they might need,” said Land, who was a Dalton assistant before taking over as coach this spring.
“If this is anything other than a social issue, we want to be able to provide any and all resources we can to these young men because that is paramount.
“That’s far more important than whether they’re starters or whether or not we’re winning football games.”
Land said there are cases where a first-time offense might cause immediate dismissal from the team, including factors beyond his scope of discipline such as expulsion or incarceration.
Craig will face charges in Superior Court, while Kiker will face his charge in Magistrate Court.
Within the team, some punishment for each player has already been put into place, Land said, and some is yet to come, although he would not specify what the penalties are for Craig and Kiker, saying that those are “an internal issue and we’ll handle that within our family.”
He also said that while even from the team’s perspective the two players are afforded the benefit of innocence until proven guilty, their punishment will not ultimately depend on “conviction or acquittal” of the charges. It’s important, Land said, for his discipline policy to be applied based on any offending individual’s actions while still remaining consistent for all players.
In addition to the punishment, Land said “accountability” will be a big part of both players’ response to the situation.
“Our focus is on helping the young men,” he said. “But there’s still a price that has got to be paid for violating team policy.”
Land said he considers any use of alcohol and drugs by players a problem — and he called Craig’s charge of DUI a “very, very serious offense, not only because of the potential danger to one’s self but potential danger to someone else as well” — and that he said he doesn’t want anyone on the team to think it’s OK.
“To be honest with you, it’s a problem when you have one person using or one kid drinking,” Land said. “To me, it’s really irrelevant if it’s one kid or 10 kids or the whole team doing it. To me, you’re fighting for that one kid and it’s a problem when you’ve got one person who considers that a condonable activity personally or as a team.”
This is the second incident involving the arrest of multiple Dalton student-athletes this year. Three Dalton student-athletes were among four teens arrested on vandalism-related charges in February. Their arraignments for one count each of misdemeanor criminal trespass is scheduled for Aug. 17.
Land, a Dalton High graduate, said that while he believes only a small number of Dalton student-athletes have committed criminal offenses in the nearly two decades he’s been coaching at the school, even one is too many.
But he also made it clear he believes in the chance for redemption.
“Anything you do once is a mistake. If you do it twice, it’s a habit,” Land said. “We want to make sure we don’t let these young men make it to a second offense.”
