Iowa Student Arrested for Harassing Hawkeye Player During Game

A University of Iowa student was arrested during last Saturday's Iowa-Arkansas State game for repeatedly harassing a Hawkeye football player from her seat in the first row behind the Iowa bench.

Brittney Mears, 22, was charged with third degree harassment for repeatedly yelling a player's name. The player was not identified in the criminal complaint, but a court order issued on Wednesday forbids Mears to have any contact with starting defensive end Adrian Clayborn.

Players get things yelled at them all the time during games. Virtually all of it gets ignored, and the ones who do the yelling rarely if ever get arrested. So what happened here?

Mears had been warned twice before about harassing Clayborn. Only two weeks prior to her arrest, Mears was given a deferred judgment, ten hours of community service and a year's probation for a July 27 incident in which she sent a "lewd" message to Clayborn's phone. She had been warned in June not to contact Clayborn but would drive past Clayborn's workplace and stare at him, according to police.

Clearly this is not a case of an athlete getting his feelings hurt by something being yelled from the stands. It goes much deeper, though the exact nature of Mears' harassment is not fully known. A number of professional athletes have had to deal with similar sorts of behavior directed at them. College athletes aren't immune either, it would appear.