Seriously? Enough already. It's time for some change, and frankly, I'm not sure anyone knows where to start. Most fingers point at the NCAA for being rigid, unprepared to tackle the major issues in collegiate athletics, and generally antiquated on the whole. Others blame the broken system..."maybe we should just pay our players to avoid these messes." The same pattern keeps occurring - a team sees some (varying level of) success and boom, allegations of cheating scandals and recruiting violations start flying. It's frustrating for fans, players, coaches, and school administrations, and there are no easy answers on how to fix this. As my buddy Ryan always says "everyone does it, it's just a matter of when they get caught." Let's take a couple of cases in recent memory and evaluate.
North Carolina. Traditionally known as a university with a strong basketball legacy - football had fallen by the wayside in recent years. Enter Butch Davis to save the day. Good ol' Butch found plenty of success at the University of Miami and later turned to the NFL with the Cleveland Browns. UNC thought he was the guy to turn the school into a stronger player in the ACC and la
nd them relevancy on the college football map. Sure, they've had a few decent seasons and turned out some strong NFL caliber guys. Welp, suffice it to say, the program wasn't clean, and we surely saw this in the laundry list of allegations that the NCAA released charging the program with academic fraud (tutors re-writing papers, doing homework, etc. - really this can't be that uncommon...), failure to monitor players' behavior from 2007-2010, and a few other minor accusations. The big one that got all the attention was the involvement of former coaching assistant John Blake and his ties to an NFL agent. Allegedly, Blake was sending his athletes to this agent while they were still in school and were registered student-athletes. Read between the lines on that one. Apparently, Blake was also on the payroll for this agent, making a nice amount of money so long as he continued to pull in players. FYI, this is pretty significant and serious NCAA infraction. One of the major, if not THE qualifying factor, that separates college from the pros is that student-athletes aren't paid and do not have sponsorships (see: Jeremy Bloom leaving University of Colorado football after receiving an endorsement for his career in skiing). Naturally, Davis claims total ignorance in the typical "I really didn't know, I swear" defense. Right. Well, as a result, 14 players (most of them pretty important cogs to the UNC football wheel) were suspended, 7 players missed the entire season (good players that have the power to change the direction of a season), Blake resigned, and who knows what other sanctions may be coming down the pike. Tsk, tsk, UNC. Is this shocking? No. But it is another case of my friend whom I referenced earlier...the general feeling that these things happen, it's just a matter of if/when/how you get caught.USC. I'll be brief with this one, since it's so high profile. Basically, there was zero institutional control over the program for about 4 years and experienced high profile players (ie: Reggie Bush...and his family) receiving money, cars, housing, and representation without notifying the NCAA. Apparently Pete Carroll was well aware and got outta there like a bat out of hell when he knew everything was about to be exposed. It actually worked out for Bush and Carroll since both of them were far removed from college football when the NCAA hammer of sanctions came down and likely didn't care much. However, USC's football program suffered the consequences of the previous coaches and players playing fast and loose. They received a post-season ban in 2010 and 2011 (meaning no bowl games, even if they had a perfect record) and lost 30 scholarships for the next three seasons. Oh, and they had to vacate all victories from 2004 -2005. Ouch. Oh, and by the way, USC's violations weren't exclusive to football...there were also major violations in men's basketball and women's tennis. Yikes.
Ohio State. I'll be even shorter with this since I just covered it the other day. Bascially, Ohio State football players had a tattoos-for-memorabilia trade with a local tattoo shop owner (which in reality likely involved money and tattoos, not just the tattoos). There's also a new update to this story as of a few hours ago - apparently OSU is self-imposing sanctions and vacating some key 2010 wins - namely their victory in the Sugar Bowl. They're also waiving the $250,000 fine imposed on former head coach Jim Tressel. They're also altering Tressel's resignation and changing it to a formal "retirement." Apparently Tressel is taking responsibility for the NCAA investigation (shock and awe!) and the University has imposed an additional 2 year probation on the football program. While this may be a good head start on what the NCAA sanctions will be, it surely won't be the end for them. That leads me directly into the next situation...
Oregon. Oh Oregon, how I loved you and your flashy, "innovative" uniforms courtesy of Phil Knight and Nike. I genuinely liked Chip Kelly and his visor and your Donald Duck mascot. I really, really liked LaMichael James. You seemed genuine and not taken
up with the silliness of pay-for-play scandals and other things. Silly me. Now Coach Kelly is facing the wrath of the NCAA as they're investigating a situation with sports agents Will Lyles (and Baron Flenory, on a lessor level) and their relationship to Oregon's program. Apparently UO paid Lyles $25,000 for his services last year alone. Their bad, because now the NCAA is knocking. Oh, and by the way, now LSU is involved in this whole mess as they apparently used Lyles' services as well. So did Oregon skirt the line of what's legal in NCAA's book, or did they cross the line? Time will tell...after an investigation, of course. What a mess.Of course there are other relevant stories - the case of Boise State (who self-reported...interesting), Tennessee and the Lane Kiffin drama, Auburn and Cam and Cecil Newton, the University of Colorado disasters from the early 2000's....the list goes on and on.
At what point do we step back and re-evaluate the NCAA's rules and college football (and athletics, for that matter) on the whole? When the sanctity of the game is lost? Frankly, I don't think tattoos and cars are taking away from the sacred nature of the game, but rather perhaps it's the old and impractical attempts of the NCAA when it comes to regulation. Maybe it takes the NCAA and the administrations of these universities to come together and bring everyone into this century when it comes to what's realistic and what isn't. I'm so sick of "fill-in-the-blank University caught in new football scandal!" Widespread reform may be the only answer we have, here, if anything, to preserve the holy sport of college football! We must have the NCAA to make things right and to regulate the necessary things in collegiate athletics, but at what point is it too much?
I'd love your thoughts on the recent rash of college football "scandals" and the NCAA's involvement...you can share your opinions in the comments.
Until next time...
S.
**UPDATE** It seems we can add Georgia Tech to this growing list. We learned today that the program will be stripped of their 2009 ACC Conference Championship title after an NCAA investigation found major rules violations and there was refusal by both student athletes and staff to cooperate with the investigation. There were also major infractions made by the Tech Basketball program, as well. The school will now have probation through 2015, a $100,000 fine, "public reprimand," and various other (more minor) penalties. Additionally, the football program must vacate all victories after November 24, 2009 (which includes the ACC Championship game). This is the third time Georgia Tech has earned a spot in the doghouse with the NCAA. There were previous charges and the program was warned that they were on thin ice. Another day, another violation. A day in the life of collegiate athletics...
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