Sixteen Alabama athletic teams will be forced by the NCAA to vacate wins, for improperly engaging in such dastardly deeds as helping scholarship athletes obtain free textbooks and other illicit goods. The football team will vacate 21 wins between 2005 and 2007 and pay a $43,900.00 fine. Not exactly the death penalty, is it? I am sure it will take Alabama’s athletic director at least 10 minutes to search his couch cushions and raid the ash tray in his car to find enough change to pay the fine. This sanction is so impotent that to call it a punishment is a disgrace to sadists everywhere. But I think we can all agree, the most shocking thing is this story is Alabama football players even having textbooks.
Once again the NCAA proves that big programs really don’t get punished … even for crimes as sexy as giving a 19 year old kid a free “Intro to Golf Course Management” textbook. Vacating wins? A paltry fine? Ha. Bama won’t even lose a scholarship.
Let’s face it, Nick Saban or Pete Carroll could pay recruits in pure Columbian nose candy (or in Saban’s case clubbed seal pelts) on camera while banging Myles Brand’s wife and recieve a punishment no stiffer than a slap from a wet noodle. But if Tennessee Tech so much as looks at a recruit funny Brand will do this to them.
No doubt the NCAA’s attempt to look tough on big programs = Epic Fail.
Great post on the Alabama’s and USC’s of the world getting all of the breaks in the world of college football. The fact that Reggie Bush still has his Heisman keeps me awake at night. It always makes me wonder – if Bush was dirty, how far back does it go? Did Carson Palmer take money? What about Mike Williams? Did Troy Polamalu get free conditioner and rosaries while he was a Trojan? Was that 38-17 2002 Orange Bowl win over my beloved Iowa Hawkeyes purchased? Was Brad Banks, the Iowa quarterback who finished second in the Heisman balloting that year to Carson Palmer, robbed of the hardware that was rightfully his due to USC’s indiscretions?
Obviously, I’m an Iowa fan, and the preferential treatment offered to the USC’s, Alabama’s, Florida State’s (go ahead Peter Warrick – play in the Sugar Bowl), Texas’s, etc. pisses me off to no end. I think it’s particularly a slap in the face to those perennial “good” teams that are fighting against the elite – which is where I put my Hawkeyes. Other teams that I throw into this group are ASU, Oklahoma State, Boston College, Missouri, Oregon, Arkansas, West Virginia – and there are probably 15-20 more.
To get to my point, I take the preferential treatment given to the “elite” teams as “The Man” keeping down the “lunch pale” teams like Iowa from rising into the elite status.
In short – it pisses me off. I want Alabama to lose something that matters. Take away a scholarship, prevent one of their assistants from going off campus to recruit – anything that matters. But don’t punish backwards and then let them get away with the same tomfullery in the future.
Making Nick Saban spend a night with the Alabama fan in that picture would be a nice start . . .
So close, yet so far away. You almost had a point, you actually had me until you brought Texas into this. Yes, the NCAA does treat big programs differently but your examples are terrible. Texas has not had any major recruiting violations or off the field problems in years. What preferential treatment have they received surrounding violations by the football program in the last 20 years? I am waiting . . .
The good guys Oklahoma State and Oregon? Ha, yeah T. Boones 500 million dollars worth of gifts make them the good guys fighting the elite, and Oregon with Nike’s muscle behind them is fighting the good fight.
Arkansas? You realized Razorback fans just chased their coach out of town by publishing his text messages they got via public records request and hired Petrino from the Falcons mid season, right? But at least they just got off probation for their recruiting violations.
Seriously, do you even really watch college football or was your comment a knee jerk homer reaction?
Yes, the NCAA can’t punish the golden geese that bring in the money (the Alabama’s of the world), they are too gutless and there is too much money at stake. But it isn’t the man keeping Iowa down, it is the fact the Hawkeyes can’t keep all their players out of jail that keeps them down. Iowa perianally has one of the worst problems with players getting arrested, just google Fulmer Cup and see how well your beloved Hawkeyes stack up.