Hornets captain cited for underage drinking

1/27/08

By Andrew R. Koch
Sports Editor

A captain of the Lyndon State men’s basketball team was cited for underage consumption following a home game over break.

Junior center Kali Stoddard-Imari was cited for his second alcohol offense in Vermont after state police found him among a group of people walking along Broad Street at 3 a.m. on the morning of January 9, following the Hornets’ win over Southern Maine Community College. While Stoddard-Imari did blow numbers in a breathalyzer test, he believes there’s more to the story than that.

“At first it was just my fiancée and I. Then a series of people left the house we were at. I was catching up with my future sister-in-law. She was about a block ahead of us,” said Stoddard-Imari, adding that she was stopped by the undercover state trooper first.

“I told my mom about what happened, and she believed that I had been racially profiled,” Stoddard-Imari said. He believes that he was profiled because he wasn’t with the person who was first stopped, and that the state trooper questioned him a couple of times, even after he told the trooper that he wasn’t driving because he had been drinking that night. He also felt that the trooper was very rude.

“I think my fiancée was lumped in with the other underage individuals so the trooper wouldn’t have to write a report,” Stoddard-Imari said. He added that his fiancée is over 21, which means that she could’ve gotten into trouble for serving alcohol to minors.

Stoddard-Imari said he resolved the situation by sitting down and apologizing to his coaches.

“I feel like I let everyone down as a captain on this team,” Stoddard-Imari said. “I’ve decided to stay dry until my 21st birthday. It isn’t that hard to do.”

“He wasn’t suspended because it happened off-campus,” said Bill Johnson, assistant athletic director and assistant men’s basketball coach. Johnson added that the school holds orientations for its athletes, as well as meetings for individual teams, where issues relating to alcohol, tobacco and drugs are addressed. Johnson also said that athletes need to be discreet about the things they do.

“He (Stoddard-Imari) handled it very adult-like. He’s a high-profile athlete, as a captain and an All-American. He’s a local kid. We’d like to see Kali be a role model for kids in the area,” Johnson said. He added that he also discussed the student-athlete expectations with Stoddard-Imari.

The student-athlete expectations include individual sections on the prohibition of the use of alcohol, tobacco and non-prescription drugs during team-related activities, such as traveling, games, practices and team get-togethers. The section on alcohol and drugs says that neither substance can be “possessed or consumed by student-athletes…unless of age with the discretion of the coach.”

“We don’t hold student-athletes to those expectations. We encourage them to meet those expectations,” Athletic Director Chris Ummer said. “This isn’t a contract. We could make it into one, but then who’s going to police it all the time?”

Ummer said that what the athletic department stresses is conduct on and off the courts and fields, plus the athletes’ conduct towards the teachers and faculty, as well as their fellow students.

“You’re representing everyone here, not just your teammates and coaches,” Ummer said. “Every student here is in a learning process. In Kali’s case, it’s a learning process.”

Stoddard-Imari will be appearing in Caledonia County District Court on February 11 to answer to the underage consumption charge, where he plans to tell the judge that he believes he was a target of racial profiling.