You’ve probably heard by now about the awful incident at Binghamton University (my alma mater), where a 6’9, 280 lb. sophomore center on the basketball team stomped on the head of a 5’9, 130 lb. senior. The smaller man now lies in near-comatose state

To make matters worse, the basketball player, Miladin Kovacevic — with the help of his parents and Serbian consulate officials — has fled to his native Serbia and is fighting extradition. Kovacevic’s mother said, “My son is not running away from justice, he’s running away from injustice,” while CNN.com also reports that, “Kovacevic’s parents said their son was threatened and disdained because of his nationality and they felt they had to rescue him.”

Injustice is afoot, but not the kind the fugitive’s mother speaks of.

The victim, Bryan Steinhauer, a Brooklyn-raised accounting major, is “unable to drink or eat on his own. “ His father says, “He has enough awareness to realize what situation he is in, especially when he sees us…He starts yelling out and crying out with a tortured look on his face. He’s starting to realize what has happened to him.”

All this over a girl who may have been pinched or groped. All this at one of America’s best state universities. All this two weeks before graduation. Injustice indeed.

When I was an undergrad at Binghamton it was known as SUNY Binghamton, not Binghamton University. The mascot was the Colonial, not the Bearcat. I remember Binghamton fondly: Indian summers and no a/c in the dorms; Professor Tricomi’s passionate lectures that led me to an appreciation, if not a pure love of Shakespeare; Professor Pindell’s sharp and charismatic discussions on Faulkner; Professor Targan’s wise, clear, and kind guidance on my fiction.

I remember Homecoming being built around men’s soccer instead of football because Binghamton didn’t have a football team (and I believe they still do not). I remember being obsessed and overly competitive in co-rec football and losing the championship in a heartbreaker. I remember sprawling quads and manicured lawns and never enough parking and winter nights cold enough to crack your ribs and ice your lungs through. I remember 10 cent wings and beer specials: Molson Golden or Killian’s Red, twenty five or fifty cents or maybe even a dollar a bottle, depending on the night. I remember naïve crushes and doomed romances, and behavior heavily influenced by kegs and Kamikaze shots and Scorpion Bowls.

So of course I remember bars like the Rathskeller where the paths of Miladin Kovacevic and Bryan Steinhauer came to cross.

Fact is you put a couple hundred college kids in a cramped basement serving a drink called ‘Scorpion Bowl’ and you’re bound to have a fight now and again. In my four years at Binghamton, in a multitude of bars and parties, I never saw anything major — a bloody nose or black eye at worst, oohs and aahs and the titillating temporary buzz that comes with the sudden eruption of testosterone. But ultimately we were kids, and boys learning (trying) to be men, and not doing such a great job of it. No one wanted to fight no matter how much empty trash we might talk, and the majority of nights out were spent drinking and trying to talk to girls and maybe we’d be lucky enough to do so and more.

So the thought of this kind of catastrophic violence taking place in my old stomping grounds is disturbing. I mean, Binghamton is a good school. Not for nothin’, but I thought Binghamtonians were more noted for kicking your ass on the LSAT, MCAT, or GRE, not in the fighting cage.

Apparently times have changed, or so I fear it will seem for my alma mater from this point forward. Especially if Kovacevic is not extradited and made to face justice.

When I first read that Kovacevic had bolted the country with the help of his parents and diplomatic connections, I was angry. Then I thought, ‘What would you do if it was your kid?’ I am a father-to-be, my wife due any day now, and already I can’t imagine what I wouldn’t sacrifice for my child today, tomorrow, or twenty years from now.

I also thought of a story from years ago, about a father on Long Island whose kid had been racing his Corvette late at night, who hit and killed a teenage girl; and when the kid went home and told his father, the father and son set to dismantling the car with the intent of destroying the evidence.

They were caught, of course, but it demonstrated the conundrum, the injustice of the situation. Here was a kid — probably not a bad kid, but maybe a momentarily stupid or irresponsible one — who had made a fatal mistake by driving too fast, showing off, whatever; and his father’s paternal instincts kicked in: ‘Save my boy.’ The boy did wrong and surely he regrets flooring it at that moment and hitting the blur in the street. But the father, does he ever regret trying to save his son from pain and hardship, even if it meant skewing the law and our collective sense of social morality?

Back to Kovacevic: I don’t know what kind of kid he is (except an enormous and obviously physically powerful one), nor do I know how he was threatened or disdained, as his mother claims (for God’s sake, he’s 6’9, 280!). According to published reports, the two other men arrested in the crime — Sanel Softic and Edin Dzubur — are Bosnian refugees.

What I do know is that during our hard partying years, both in and after college, my friends and I have witnessed and even had a few scuffles. But never — never — have we seen or been a part of the kind of violence as perpetrated by Kovacevic, Softic, and Dzubur upon Steinhauer, and that makes me wonder not just how it happened, but why.

In every college town in America, and maybe the world, young guys get drunk in bars. They push, they shove, they shout, they’ll even kick and punch and maybe throw something. But percentage wise, how often do these events result in near-death? Not often. Because even in bar fights, even in total melees, there are rules. At some point common sense for the majority, a kind of self-defense/preservation mechanism, kicks in. Especially as a larger than average guy who has known and hung out with very large and very strong guys, you instinctively know what is and is not a fair fight, and what warrants physical action and to what degree.

Maybe Kovacevic had just had too much to drink and lost it. Reports say it was quick: the bigger man basically demolished the smaller man in an instant. Maybe he was angry that his scholarship had not been renewed and had some extra rage pent up inside.

But what bothers me the most is the fact that Kovacevic stood over Steinhaur and stomped on his head (reportedly; the official police report is being withheld from the public). I repeat: stomped on his head. Even if you take into consideration the heat of the moment, this act constitutes conscientious and malicious intent, which must be met with an equal degree of justice.

Which is why I have such a problem with Kovacevic’s mother saying that their son is “fleeing injustice.” It is an injustice for several men to pummel and pound on one physically inferior man. It is an injustice for Kovacevic to say, through his lawyer, that he does not trust the American system, and that is why he fled. But it is the American system that gave him a chance to play basketball and get an education at one of the best schools in America. If the system was so bad, then why did he come here and try to reap the system’s rewards?

Point blank: Kovacevic should be brought back to face maximum charges and be prosecuted to the fullest.

(And by the way, do a Google search on him and see how almost every photo of this guy is like a mug shot. I know, this has nothing to do with anything and is absurdly biased. But I think it’s oddly appropriate given the circumstances.)

And I hope Steinhauer and his family can someday, somehow get their lives back, though of course it will never be the same. Even if he did pinch or grope or ask Softic’s girlfriend to dance, I think a shove or even a punch in the face would have sufficed.

But gang assault resulting in a coma? No.

These people didn’t know the rules and now they want to change them behind cowardly excuses — especially Kovacevic. And it makes me sad that this happened in Binghamton, my alma mater, to Binghamton students, who I used to be one of. (Kovacevic was recruited, for chrissakes, for his impressive “size and rugged demeanor on the court.”)

No matter what happens from this point forward, the tragedy is irrevecovable: at least two young men’s lives shattered, two families devastated, two collegiate dreams destroyed.

And as a father-to-be, again I have to ask myself, What would you do if you were Kovacevic’s dad? Or even worse, What would you do if you were Steinhauer’s?

The truth is, I don’t know, and I hope I never have to.

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