There's doing community service because you genuinely believe in the cause; then there's doing community service to look good.
Where does Texas defensive tackle Lamarr Houston fit?
In 2007, The Daily Texan ran a story detailing Houston's work with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD. During his junior year of high school, Houston met a mother whose son was injured in a drunken driving accident. Despite, at the time, not being involved in any similar incident, Houston began to help the mother at fundraisers for MADD.
Since then, Houston has helped in several community service events, including a Boys & Girls Club of America program designed to build confidence among teenage girls as well as making visits to the Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas.
Sounds pretty altruistic and leaves a nice impression of Houston.
Until, of course, Sunday came around.
Houston was arrested early Sunday morning for driving while intoxicated after being involved in a two-car crash - the same sort of thing MADD was created to prevent; the same sort of thing that seemed to inspire Houston's streak of charity work.
A hole is now firmly placed in Houston's good-guy image. Were the trips to the Medical Center because of an intrinsic passion Houston holds or because it gave Texas football a PR boost? After all, the summer of 2007 didn't exactly fare well for Texas' image.
From June to September 2007, five Longhorns were arrested, including linebacker Sergio Kindle and defensive end Henry Melton, both arrested on drunken driving charges. Having an impact player who has worked with MADD in his past certainly helps throw off some of the light of the team's summer-long affair with the police.
It's tough to go too hard on Houston. Maybe all the charity work Houston has done was from the heart, and Sunday's mishap was simply a mistake. Maybe he just got overexcited about a win over Florida Atlantic.
Nobody's perfect. Houston isn't the first person to earn a DWI, and he won't be the last. But not everybody has done as much community service as he has, particularly with MADD. So when the time comes for Houston to issue that public apology, the doubt will be there.
Is he apologizing because he genuinely believes in it, or is he apologizing to look good?
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