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University police mentor athletes about staying safe through UCPD Mentor Program

By Sonali Kohli

Nov. 5, 2009 10:40 p.m.

When Bruin fullback Chane Moline sees university police at a party, he doesn’t leave.

Instead, Moline approaches the officers and asks if they need any help.

Moline, a fourth-year history student, knows the officers because they have traveled with him to games, given him advice and have been a part of his athletic career at UCLA.

These officers are members of the UCPD Mentor Program, which consists of nine volunteers who make themselves available as resources for UCLA Athletics through annual presentations and game management, said Officer Dave Behrens, who has been with the program since its initiation in 1994.

The program grew due to the need to find a solution to the problems with violence and alcohol that were becoming prevalent among players in coach Terry Donahue’s football team 15 years ago.

It has now expanded to include mentorship of the basketball and spirit squad teams in addition to football, he said.

“They meet with us to tell us how to stay out of trouble and all that. They go over the rules, basically of everything ““ school, traffic violations ““ if we’re at a party and we see them, what to do, that sort of thing,” said Michael Roll, a guard for the basketball team and fourth-year global studies student.

In past seasons, officers have attended both football and basketball away games and tournaments as a preventative safety measure for the players but have not been able to this season as a result of budget cuts, said Detective Selby Arsena, one of the mentors.

“I think it really helps to break down barriers, and it helps make more students become more interactive with the UCPD,” said associate athletic director Bobby Field.

Moline has even formed personal relationships with some of the UCPD mentors, such as Officer Dwight Ward, who like Behrens, has been with the program since its foundation.

“The more they see your face around, the more comfortable they are about approaching you about a question, about a personal matter that they may ask for advice or suggestions,” said officer Luis De Vivero, now in his eighth year as a mentor.

Roll said he considers himself and the rest of the players closer to the UCPD mentors than other police officers, because they have spent so much time with the team, but he has not become personally close to any of the officers.

According to De Vivero, the mentors receive the most calls from the football team in the spring, because there is no longer a structured schedule to follow, and the spare time leads to more potentially troublesome situations.

The mentors also ensure the teams’ safety at home and educate players when potentially dangerous situations arise, said De Vivero.

In past years animal rights activists have threatened to attack football players during transportation, so he spoke to the team, De Vivero said.

“We sat down at the end of a practice, and I spoke to the team and let them know, “˜Just beware of your safety, and these are the things to look for,’ and it’s just another refresher of what we talked about from the beginning,” De Vivero said.

This assurance of safety goes both ways: since the beginning of the program, the football team has aided UCPD in maintaining order, especially during parties, Behrens said.

The first indication of this, according to Behrens, was in October 1995, when instead of police having to break up a party of 500 people on Gayley Avenue, the football team was able to end it by simply telling attendees that the party was over.

“If we can identify players at a party … we can see a face that we know and that we’ve had positive interaction with, absolutely we’re going to use them as a resource,” Behrens said.

Some football players have even gone on to pursue careers with the LAPD and cite the mentor program’s positive influence as a reason, De Vivero said.

“It’s important for our players … to be able to just learn from these guys, and in a sense, for these guys, to be mentors to them, help them make good decisions,” Field said.

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