Tom Craft can survive this, but not unscathed. He can outlast the scandalous allegations about his football operation at San Diego State, but not without resolving to run a tighter ship.

He can weather this storm because, well, because his bosses don't seem to recognize that it's raining. But he can never, ever slap another player without provocation. He must stop playing fast and loose with the NCAA rule book. He must become more vigilant about alcohol abuses within his program.

Otherwise, he's got to be gone.

If Craft's conduct does not yet rise to the level of Get-This-Guy-Out-Of-Here – and that's still an open question at this stage of the investigation – the Aztecs coach has clearly entered Zero Tolerance territory.

Allegations are just allegations. Some of the events described in the sworn affidavits attached to the lawsuit of strength coach Dave Ohton are in dispute. Yet even eyewitnesses sympathetic to Craft acknowledge that alcohol has flowed too freely among the Aztecs players before practice and on planes and that the coach slapped lineman Mike Kracalik in the face during a team meeting.

Craft's control of his players' drinking habits is inherently incomplete. His slap of Kracalik would appear to be a case of bad judgment rather than malicious intent. But since SDSU is already serving NCAA probation for inadequate institutional control, any further embarrassments reinforce the perception of a renegade program – a luxury this school can ill afford.

Craft is not a Woody Hayes or a Bobby Knight. He has not earned behavioral mulligans by delivering championships and enhancing revenues. On a campus where football struggles for survival, every documented abuse augments the argument of those who would eliminate football entirely. The head coach must therefore strive to stay above suspicion and scrupulously avoid any action beneath contempt. Otherwise, he imperils the whole program.

From here, the only charge that would warrant Craft's dismissal if it were substantiated is lineman Anthony Foli's claim that Craft admitted he was violating NCAA rules with his offseason workouts, and then enlisted his players as conspirators. If true, this episode would demonstrate a blatant disregard for compliance and a corrupting influence on young players. Absent a videotape, however, proving that allegation will be nearly impossible.

What Foli recalls as intentional larceny has been characterized elsewhere as exploiting loopholes. That's an enormous distinction. But when Kracalik describes Craft's head-turning slap, and teammates suggest he's exaggerating, that's a distinction without a difference.

"I would say categorically that slapping a player is never acceptable," said Jim Thompson, executive director of the Stanford-based Positive Coaching Alliance. "Coaches shouldn't physically manhandle athletes."

"I don't think physical abuse can be tolerated in any way," said Peter Roby, the former Harvard basketball coach who now runs Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society. "(Some) Coaches come out of an old-school mentality where those things are tolerated. But the culture has changed and coaches need to change with it."

If Craft's purpose was to teach a tactical lesson about turning the other cheek – to resist provocation on the playing field – his methods were crass and clumsy. Worse, the emotional sting Kracalik felt in 2002 has not fully subsided.

Craft may never atone for the humiliation he has caused this player, but he should be required to make a full and public apology as a condition of his probation. This is what Dwight Eisenhower demanded after George Patton slapped a soldier in Sicily in 1943, and Patton was a lot less expendable than Tom Craft.

"Coaches at that level are under a lot of pressure to produce victories," Roby said. "I don't expect coaches to be perfect. When a coach does step over the line and does something that is abusive, if it's not a pattern of behavior but an instance of bad judgment, and the person apologizes for it, that is a mitigating circumstance."

Whether Craft will be fired, disciplined or cleared is conjecture. None of the charges detailed in sworn affidavits is any more troubling than the university's ongoing imitation of an ostrich. Rather than acknowledge that serious issues have been raised and announce its resolve to investigate them, the administration is cowering behind the old pending litigation excuse – as if conceding the severity of the charges would somehow prejudice Ohton's lawsuit.

Instead of standing up to be counted, to clarify SDSU's standards and reiterate its responsibilities, university President Dr. Stephen Weber has been conspicuous by his silence. Athletic Director Mike Bohn has said nothing of substance. If you start looking for leadership on Montezuma Mesa, you had better bring a magnifying glass.

"I would say all of it is probably because of the litigation," said Colleen Bentley-Adler, director of public affairs for the California State University system. "We have to be really careful about anything we say. Certainly we have to protect student and employee rights. We have to investigate what has truly happened . . . to make sure we take the right action or don't take action."

Tom Craft can survive this investigation, but he can't be completely exonerated. If Craft escapes with a wrist slap, perhaps Mike Kracalik should be allowed to administer it.