Virginia got to the right place. It just took the long way there, and the route matters.
On Tuesday, Aug. 25, head coach Tony Elliott confirmed that running back and kick returner Solomon Beebe has been suspended indefinitely from competition, which keeps him off the roster for Saturday's opener against NC State. Elliott was clear that this is not a dismissal, stating that Beebe remains a part of the Cavaliers program. Fine. That's a defensible call while the legal process runs.
What isn't defensible is the eight days it took to get there. Beebe was arrested on Aug. 17 and charged with three Class 1 misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty. According to reporting from The Daily Progress, a housekeeper at his apartment complex told an animal control officer she saw Beebe hit his dog multiple times, including holding the dog against a wall and punching it with a closed fist. In a custody petition, animal control officer Justin Gibson said, "She observed Mr. Beebe hold his dog against the wall and punch his dog with a closed fist multiple times, and the dog was yelping in pain with each strike." Court records point to multiple incidents, one on Aug. 10 and two on Aug. 12. The dog, a pit bull named Jeb, was seized by Albemarle County on Aug. 13.
Those are allegations. Beebe has not entered a plea, there has been no trial, and no conviction. His next court appearance is an unspecified hearing listed for Oct. 1, not a trial date. His attorney, Thomas Weidner IV, has declined to comment. All of that is true and all of it should stay front of mind.
But none of it required Virginia to spend a week acting like nothing had happened.
The timeline shows as much. As of Aug. 21, the student paper reported that Beebe remained on the roster with no update on his availability. Even after the arrest was public, he was at practice on Monday, and Elliott talked about him as a player still in the mix in both the return game and the running back rotation, someone who "showed immediately that he can play running back and be a really good one." The university's only public line, repeated across outlet after outlet, was that it "does not comment on matters involving ongoing criminal proceedings or student records."
That statement isn't a policy so much as a hiding place.
My problem is this, and I think it's fair: a program can hold two ideas at once. A player is presumed innocent in a courtroom, and a player accused of punching his dog against a wall shouldn't be returning kicks on national television five days later. Those aren't in tension. Competition is a privilege the school controls entirely. Suspending someone from that privilege carries no legal implication and costs the accused nothing he's owed. Virginia landed on exactly that position on Tuesday. The only question is why it took until Tuesday.
The answer, I suspect, is that programs would rather wait and see how loud the reaction gets, or whether the story quietly dies. "Remains part of the program, no further comment" is a way to reserve every option while committing to nothing. It lets the school claim due process when it's really just buying time.
What's frustrating is that the standard writes itself. If the allegation involves violence, competition eligibility goes on hold immediately, pending the outcome. No parsing misdemeanor versus felony in the first news cycle. No coach fielding questions about the depth chart while the player's still at practice. A clear rule applied the same way every time protects the accused too, since nobody can argue the school singled him out. Vague statements do the opposite: they make every decision look like a reaction to pressure instead of a principle.
The local criticism got there before the suspension did. An Augusta Free Press columnist wrote plainly, "At the very least, Tony Elliott has to sit our guy here, Solomon Beebe, the tailback transfer from UAB, until the case is resolved, right? You can't play a guy that the cops are saying punched a dog." That's one outlet's opinion, but it's the obvious one, and it was obvious a week before Virginia acted.
Elliott, to his credit, said the right thing on Tuesday: "We take very seriously the responsibility that we have to represent the University of Virginia." I believe him. Beebe was set to be a real piece of this team, the primary kick returner and part of a rotation behind transfers Peyton Lewis and Jekail Middlebrook, a player who arrived from UAB with watchlist buzz. Sitting him hurts, which is exactly why doing it quickly matters. The hard calls are the ones you want on a schedule, not a whim.
As of this writing, Beebe is suspended, the case is unresolved, and Lewis and Middlebrook will carry more against the Wolfpack. Virginia got the decision right. Next time, and there's always a next time somewhere, it should get there fast, and it should be able to point to a rule instead of a mood.
