When Quincy University coaches go searching for student-athletes, they're always on the lookout for "QU kids."

It's not an official distinction the university uses, but more than one coach has used that term over the years. "QU kids" are good ones. Good students, good people and — more often than not — good athletes, too.

They're an asset to our community. The football team holds outreach programs with area grade schools. The school's women's basketball and volleyball teams have done wonderful things this year in bringing awareness to breast cancer and raising funds for the fight of the disease.

You can go down the list of sports teams at the school and you'll see each doing things for the betterment of our community and for their own personal growth.

So it's rare to see stories like the one printed here Tuesday about men's basketball player Larry Dumas, who has been charged with a felony after an on-campus altercation left a fellow student with two broken bones in his face, including a broken jaw.

In more than 10 years of covering QU athletics, that's the first story I've written about a QU athlete being up on a felony charge.

That's not to say QU student-athletes are all angels. There have been plenty of youthful mistakes made by those athletes over the years. Each team handles the problems internally. When you see that someone missed a game for "violation of team rules," it's a pretty safe bet that the player did something silly and has to pay the price for their misdeed. After time is served, everyone moves on.

This case, by the nature of the charges, is different from the rest.

It's surprising the school appears ready to allow Dumas to continue to represent it while his charges are pending. On Monday, Marty Bell, who is Dumas' coach and the school's athletic director, said QU would wait until all the facts were in until making a decision on Dumas' playing status.

We can all understand the concept of being innocent until being proven guilty. The issue here isn't whether Dumas is guilty. We'll see how it all plays out in the court system. His case is set for the December jury docket.

But not letting Dumas put on a QU jersey until the case has run its course through the legal system doesn't hamper his due process. It would be prudent move by a school that, according to its Web site, "holds the safety and overall well-being of its students and staff as one of the highest concerns."

One of those students was the recipient of a broken jaw, allegedly made by the hand of another one of its students. This doesn't happen often at the school. According to its own crime statistics, the most assault cases reported to campus police in a year since 2005 was two in 2006.

Apparently, there are more "QU kids" on campus than those on the athletic teams.

Couldn't tell you whether Dumas is a "QU kid" or not. We should find out whether or not he's guilty of the violent crime that he's been charged with before making him one.

— dobrien@whig.com/221-3365