NCAA Sanctions a Slippery Slope, but Who Takes the Fall?

The NCAA is there to protect its student athletes, yet again and again we see the athletes being the ones who are getting the short end of the stick. There are more and more stories of schools being sanctioned by the NCAA (or self-imposing sanctions), meanwhile the culprits are no longer coaching or attending the school. Let’s take a look at some recent stories and see if this rings true.

The most recent is the USC Men’s Basketball team. In this case, it was USC who self-imposed the sanctions. The school cut its scholarships (by one for the next two years), lowered the number of days spent recruiting, forfeited victories, and banned itself from postseason play for this year.

The main culprits in this case? Ex-coach Tim Floyd and ex-player OJ Mayo. There is still going to be a NCAA hearing on this matter, but really, who cares at this point. USC already handed out its own punishment. And the ones that will suffer are the current student-athletes on the team. They will be the ones who cannot play in the Pac-10 tournament, the NCAA tournament, or even the NIT. Tim Floyd and OJ Mayo walk away unscathed. Both are in the NBA now and neither will have any punishment placed upon them.

We also are seeing the USC football team under investigation. There is the Reggie Bush issue as well as the Joe McKnight use of a Land Rover. Again, no matter what the NCAA imposes, all key players will be long gone from USC.

Bush is already in the NFL, McKnight has decided to enter the NFL draft, and head coach Pete Carroll has resigned and will coach in the NFL for the Seattle Seahawks (good timing Pete). So the punishments, no matter what they are, will only affect the current players at the school, the ones who did not break any rules (so far) and are not at all part of the NCAA investigation.

We can look back at many other instances in college athletics where coaches and ex players walk, and the current coach and players get the sanctions placed upon them.

John Calipari and Derrick Rose at Memphis (they had to vacate their wins from the 2007-2008 season). Calipari is now the coach at Kentucky, Rose is in the NBA.

Cal coach Todd Bozeman, who paid Jelani Gardner’s parents. Bozeman resigned, Gardner transferred to Pepperdine, and Cal had to forfeit past games, and its appearance in the 1996 NCAA Tournament. In this case, the NCAA did impose an eighth year “show-cause” order on Bozeman, which meant no school could hire Bozeman until 2005 without permission of the NCAA. That extra punishment was because he lied to the NCAA.

And there is also the NCAA conveniently waiting to finally rule on the appeal of Florida State, till after Bobby Bowden’s last game. Florida State will have to strip Bowden (and there football team) of 14 wins during the 2006-2007 seasons. To me, the timing with this story coming out days after his last victory and at the beginning of his retirement just seems odd.

Those are just a few of the many rules violations we see from NCAA coaches and players. The punishments never seem to hit the violators.

The NCAA says it is there to protect the student-athlete. A good start would be to really use the “show-cause” rule on all coaches who violate rules.

As for the kids who leave to go pro, I am not sure what they can do, if anything. But those the NCAA hurts the most are the innocent ones, the kids who bust their butts to finally start as a senior, only to see that their team will not be able to play in the post season (or to find out the season was a sham). I ask you, is that fair?