The Letter of the Law: Bloggers Criticize Programs that do not Follow the Rules

It seems impossible these days to browse the news and not find a story about Bernie Madoff or other financial “gurus” breaking the law for personal gain. Yet while these scandals dominate the front pages, it seems as if there is an equal or greater amount of rule breaking to be found in the sports section. The National Collegiate Athletic Association publishes a large tome filled with a variety of intricate and complex rules, and seeks to punish programs that break them with matching force. This week I decided to look at two blog posts that examine different sides of the rulebook, and the way programs choose to, or sometimes not to, adhere to it. The first is a post on Deadspin titled “Florida State Punished for Cheating Scandal (But Not Really)” in which writer Dashiell Bennett argues that the relatively light punishments doled out to Florida State University for their program-wide academic negligence do not match the scope of the violations. In the second post titled “Capel and Griffin: Communication Without Speaking,” Thayer Evans, a freelance writer for the New York Times The Quad Blog, highlights the way University of Oklahoma men’s basketball head coach Jeff Capel was able to successfully recruit Blake Griffin despite the restrictions placed on the program due to indiscretions by previous head coach Kelvin Sampson. For convenience I have posted my responses to these posts on the respective blogs as well as below.


“Florida State Punished For Cheating Scandal (But Not Really)”

In posting this you are in effect catching the NCAA in the act, showcasing the absurdity and inconsistency of the association in handing out punishments. I think you successfully deconstructed the restrictions doled out by the NCAA and showed how these supposed tough restrictions mean very little to the athletic program’s most important teams. However I think the extent of the problem goes much further than you indicate in your analysis.

I think there is no question that the prominence of Florida State University’s athletic program helped minimize the severity of the penalties. While their football program is losing a total of five scholarships over three years, the New Mexico State Lobos are able to offer five fewer scholarships annually, twenty instead of twenty-five, and reduce total scholarships from eighty-five to eighty for the next three seasons for similar transgressions. The Lobos athletic director indicated that the NCAA is moving to increase the severity of sanctions for programs caught breaking the rules and that “we’re one of the first cases experiencing that, if you will, get-though policy.” And it would appear to be the only program so far, having its ruling handed to it just over a week before Florida State got a slap on the wrist. Do you think the presence of Rhodes scholar Myron Rolle (pictured right) on the football roster played a part in minimizing the penalties? Does the one bright individual make up for a batch of bad eggs?

You also raise the issue that even though they may have to vacate victories that were accomplished with ineligible players “no one will ever forget that the really did win it.” I think another facet of this is that while the individuals may have failed to uphold the first, and theoretically more important, half of the “student-athlete” moniker, they proved themselves to be the more capable players. They are not going to be remembered for being valedictorian, but they will be remembered for the touchdowns they score. Yet do you see this as encouragement for the school to work harder for athletes’ academic success or a situation that will simply lead to a lower graduation rate? The other matter at stake is the personal achievements of head football coach Bobby Bowden. Especially in a sport like football where it takes a minimum of twenty-two men to field a competitive team, it seems unfair to lose victories that featured only a handful of these ineligible players. Once again the prominence of the program involved makes it likely that the NCAA will not tarnish the records of one of college football’s most recognizable and longest tenured coaches.

So I will put the ball back in your court, so to speak. Do you feel that there is an adequate punishment the NCAA could have doled out to match this crime? And more importantly, is there any real obligation on Florida State, with one of the worst graduation rates among athletes, to improve their academic success scores?


“Capel and Griffin: Communication Without Speaking”

Reading this post truly helps me understand just how absurd some of scandals in college athletics are, when some individuals are willing to work so hard to follow the letter of the law. It brings to light one of college sports “good guys,” as coach Capel (pictured left with Griffin) was able to build a friendship with a player despite even stricter recruiting regulations resulting in place because of former head coach Sampson.

I think that while this story does highlight the exceptional efforts of one coach to restrict himself to the letter of the law, it also reflects some of the failures of the NCAA in regulating the recruiting process. This story deals with the recruitment of Griffin once he was a junior, but what it doesn’t mention is that he was probably getting harassed like this on a daily basis since he was in the eighth grade. I do not mean to imply that Capel was harassing Griffin, but simply that while Capel was trying to attract all of Griffin’s attention, so were the dozens of other coaches vying for the big man. As you say “the back and forth would not end until…he went to sleep for the night.” And now the NCAA has extended prospect status to seventh graders, meaning coaches wishing to converse with them must do so in accordance with recruiting guidelines. There is no question that the emotional bond between player and coach is one of the key aspects of college basketball, but I would put forth the question, how early it too early to start developing that connection? Would this frequent text messaging have been something to commend had it been occurring for four years instead of a few months?

The fact that the two communicated extensively over text messaging not only reflects the willingness of the coach to play by the rules, even if it was a mere technicality that permitted it, but also his willingness to adapt to the preferences of his players. In that light, I wonder what you feel are the biggest impacts of the NCAA decision to ban coaches from text messaging recruits? I think this complete ban is yet another signal that the NCAA is failing to adapt some of its archaic structure to modern sentiments and developments in current technology. Most college students now prefer text messaging with their friends to any other form of communication such as calling, or e-mailing, and I believe instant messaging isn’t at the top simply because it has not yet become a fully enabled mobile technology. Do you see the NCAA reversing this decision in the future? Do you think the NCAA could actually create greater recruiting equality by restricting coaches to their offices and only allowing communication through technological means?