Florida State President John Thrasher addressed his school’s football team in July after separate incidents of players striking women.

Texas A&M is paying an annual salary of $130,000 to a “director of player development,” a life skills and counseling position for the football team.

Image-conscious universities love the money, exposure and bonding that sports create. But school presidents know better than anyone that it has to be handled carefully. When publicity from sports turns against a school, as in the recent spate of incidents involving Indiana University football and men’s basketball players, it will reverberate nationally.

IU President Michael McRobbie, not known for his involvement in sports, used an annual meeting this week of the athletic department staff, including every head coach, to warn that he has had enough of “repeated” player misbehavior.

“They embarrass the university,” McRobbie told the staff. “They embarrass all of you in athletics and they are a complete distraction from our primary role as an educational institution. This misbehavior simply has to stop.”

A day later, IU released McRobbie’s comments to the media, but he has declined interview requests from The Indianapolis Star.

“When we talked about releasing his comments to the athletics staff, he made it clear that he wouldn’t have any further comment on this issue at this time,” said Mark Land, a school spokesman.

McRobbie, who became IU’s president in 2007, is facing his biggest sports-related public relations problem since former men’s basketball coach Kelvin Sampson left the school in 2008 after NCAA violations.

McRobbie has worked at IU since 1997, but he had nothing to do with hiring Sampson. He had nothing to do with athletics before becoming president. His background is in philosophy and science. Indeed, before jolting the athletic department staff with his warning about player behavior, McRobbie told them about a major discovery made at IU in the field of paleobotany — the study of fossil plants.

“This is the sort of world-class achievement by our researchers with which I want to see Indiana University associated,” McRobbie said.

The news lately has been about men’s basketball players Emmitt Holt and Thomas Bryant being cited for illegal possession of alcohol. That was after an incident last fall when Holt, who police said had been drinking, hit and severely injured former teammate Devin Davis with a car he was driving.

There are several other examples. Football player Antonio Allen, the team’s leading tackler last season, was arrested in June and charged with dealing cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. He was dismissed from the team and transferred to Indiana State while awaiting trial in December.

Receiver Issac Griffith has a pretrial conference in September after being arrested for OWI and endangering a person. In April, defensive lineman Ralph Green III was charged with battery, public intoxication and disorderly conduct. It’s unclear where that case stands, but Griffith and Green III are participating in IU football practices.

In the past 18 months, IU’s basketball program has had an OWI — during the season — and failed drug tests. It’s unclear if any incidents in sports other than football and men’s basketball prompted McRobbie’s remarks.

David Ridpath, a professor of sports administration at Ohio University, said IU “is not a school that’s had a lot of trouble.” That McRobbie would make a strong statement didn’t surprise him.

“It’s a different world now. Everybody has a camera phone,” Ridpath said. “Maybe presidents are a little more sensitive.”

Ridpath added that the incidents are “a PR and optic thing” that wouldn’t have a big impact on the school’s reputation.

IU trustee Phil Eskew, however, said he is hearing from alumni about the athletic department issues.

“As a trustee, I get emails and questions from alumni saying, ‘How can you let this continue to happen? This is damaging to the reputation of Indiana University,’ ” Eskew said. “I’m obviously not the coach or the athletic director, but we look to them to hold their athletes accountable. … I’m as upset as any alum about the behavior of our student-athletes.”

There are 11 employees listed for men’s basketball in IU’s athletic department directory, including a trainer and two strength coaches. There are 16 players on the roster.

Eskew noted that McRobbie’s comments to the athletic department staff came at a meeting scheduled annually.

“It’s a stern message, and it should be, because it does reflect on our overall university, and we don’t like it,” Eskew said. “I’m hoping the athletes, men and women, can learn from this and realize they’re under a microscope.”