Disagreements take place that sometimes escalate until the two participants lose their cool and start throwing punches.

It happens, and the situation usually works itself out.

But when one of the participants is a student-athlete, the university must act quickly, punishing the player accordingly.

In the past few years, the University of Utah’s football team has had to deal with a spate of legal problems, ranging from one player stealing the wallets of his teammates to another athlete taking a baseball bat and breaking it on a man’s skull.

The latter case resulted in the creation of the new Student Athlete Code of Conduct that, in essence, states the U will hold athletes responsible for their actions on the field and in the community.

The code’s second paragraph begins this way, “With the privilege of participating on an intercollegiate team comes the responsibility to conduct one’s self, both on and off campus, in a manner that creates a positive image and brings credit to the university and the sport.”

The most important word in this sentence is privilege. In many cases, legal trouble will not stop a student from attending class, a service which they have paid handsomely to participate in, but the right to step on the court or field is far different.

If an athlete makes a bad play, the coach has a right to sit them down. If they get in significant legal trouble, that coach has an obligation to sit them down.

Under this new athletes’ code, the athlete is guilty until proven innocent.

That is exactly the situation Doug Kaufusi finds himself in. The U’s starting tackle was involved in an altercation in January that led to multiple warrants for his arrest.

The legal system has yet to decide if Kaufusi was guilty or not and, if he was, what the appropriate punishment should be. But once coach Ron McBride was made aware of the situation, he followed the guidelines and suspended Kaufusi for the football team’s game against Air Force this weekend.

It’s an unfortunate situation that results in a coach using this new code. It’s unfortunate that the university felt it necessary to create it, but it is a testament to the U. The athletes’ code shows the public that this campus doesn’t let its student-athletes dictate the level of professionalism. The U sets the bar, and the athletes must strive to reach it.