Don't pin blame on lacrosse for killing at U.Va.

The "lacrosse" slaying.

Yeardley Love's death, allegedly at the hand of her University of Virginia classmate George Huguely, will be forever tagged with that unfortunate, too-easy label.

Love and Huguely were college students who happened to share a common athletic talent on two very good college teams. But had they simply been, say, geology majors and not lacrosse players, well, the "geology" slaying doesn't have the same media jangle, does it?

It's fair to wonder whether the national newshounds would have even descended upon Charlottesville in such droves without the prevailing power of sports to drive interest, discussion and hysteria.

The juicy undercurrent here is the indictment of an entire sport - as reflexively happened at Duke a few years ago - as being a breeding ground of boorish, misbehaving males, fueled by lacrosse's supposed culture of entitlement and privilege.

Please.

Yes, Love and Huguely came from private-school backgrounds in the Washington, D.C.-Baltimore area, one of lacrosse's traditional player and fan hotbeds. It's where they learned to love and excel at a game that helped lead them to U.Va.

But let's cut the convenient and insulting pretense. Lacrosse is not why Love, 22, died a violent death in the early hours of Monday morning, nor is lacrosse why Huguely, 22, stands accused. Lacrosse is to blame for Love's death as much as football is to blame for Michael Vick's dog-fighting sins.

Nothing about how lacrosse is taught or played anywhere in the country told or inferred to Huguely he was within his rights, as he reportedly admitted to police, to kick open Love's bedroom door and slam her head repeatedly against a wall.

Lacrosse is unavoidably caught up in this senseless loss, but let's refute the class warriors who want to attach to it an incriminating "ah-ha!"

Then wish peace to two crestfallen groups of U.Va. teammates who have become tragically linked beyond their imaginations.

They will play on into their respective NCAA tournaments, as well they should. Bids will be announced Sunday, and both U.Va. teams are expected to host opening-round games next weekend to attention that surely will feel suffocating.

Avoiding it by declining to participate in the playoffs apparently was an option, but it would have been of little consolation. U.Va.'s top-ranked men's team has no call to abandon a favorite's run at a national championship because of the trouble of one player.

More reasonable would have been if the women's team, also a title contender, chose to mourn by canceling the rest of its season. The timely pause until the start of the tournament, though, has delivered a necessary interim to question and to cope.

And ultimately, looking forward to the chance to compete again in their sport will offer the Cavaliers what U.Va. athletic director Craig Littlepage called a chance to return to a healing routine.

There is truth in that, even as an inexplicable reality resonates through a stunned Virginia campus.

Tom Robinson, (757) 446-2518, tom.robinson@pilotonline.com