An Alabama Fan's Open Letter to the NCAA: You Finally Got One Right

By going back and vacating games that were played during the time of the violation, they are actually coming closer to punishing the guilty, not the innocent.

When the NCAA rules that there will be a loss of scholarships, that affects the new coach and the new players who had nothing to do with the mistakes made, including the athlete who loses his chance to get an education and play for the team of his choice.

It also punishes the fans who sure as heck had nothing to do with the mistake.

A loss of scholarships punishes a University during and after.

It punishes during because other coaches use it as a recruiting tool against you by saying, "Son, you don't want to go there, they are on probation and they will not be able to compete with fewer players."

It punishes long after as those reduced and inferior classes work their way through your program. A loss of scholarships for four years is really a seven or eight year penalty.

Alabama is just now recovering from such a penalty issued almost eight years ago.

The next thing I want to call attention to is the self-reporting issue. In the past, if an institution self-reported a violation they were congratulated for self-reporting the violation, and then they were punished just as severely as if they had been caught doing it or covering it up.

To me, that would be like finding a bag of stolen money and going to the police station to turn it in and then being pistol whipped and thrown into jail to rot.

There was no reward for self-reporting the violation.

There was no advantage for doing the right thing.

That would, in my opinion, make another school think, Hey, we might as well take our chances and see if we can get away with it because the punishment will be the same either way.

I hope that the NCAA took into consideration that Alabama discovered it, investigated it, and turned themselves in for it and then corrected it.

If they did take that into consideration, they should make that clear because it might encourage others to clean their own houses and not turn a blind eye to mistakes being made.

I would dare to say this textbook thing was and is going on everywhere in the country as I write this article.

Kudos to the NCAA for getting it right this time, and Kudos to Alabama as well for doing the right thing.

There was a mistake made and for once, the punishment came closer to fitting the crime. 

Now, quit patting yourself on the back and do something about what's going on in Los Angeles at USC!

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