The National Collegiate Athletic Association slapped the University of Montana’s football program on the wrist last week, placing it on probation for the next three years and reducing its scholarships by four over that same time period. Embarrassment aside, UM escaped harsh penalties at the conclusion of an investigation that somehow took more than a year. Perhaps now, the NCAA can turn its focus to programs far worse than those at my alma mater.
There are certainly troubling findings in the recent report, specifically the fact that boosters provided bail money and legal representation to two former football players who had been arrested and tased by police at a house party. But when reports surfaced early last year that NCAA investigators had opened up an inquiry, I frankly expected a worse result. Remember, at the time, the feds were also investigating how the school handled sexual assaults and UM was making national headlines for its athletes’ conduct.
Additional violations, according to the NCAA, include boosters providing free meals, lodging and laundry services. Sure, all of those are against the rules, but, as a former NCAA enforcement staffer told Sports Illustrated’s reporters Pete Thamel and Alexander Wolff, the current level of cheating in college sports is a “free-for-all.”
The NCAA has never been particularly popular, but criticism of the organization has increased since president Mark Emmert took the helm about three years ago and promised to reform the enforcement division. Instead, his tenure has been marked by botched high-profile investigations. The most recent involves chronic offender University of Miami, whose former booster is serving a 20-year sentence for helping defraud investors of $930 million in a Ponzi scheme. And he really wants to tell anyone who will listen that the school’s football program is extraordinarily corrupt.
In 2011, Nevin Shapiro, already in jail, told Yahoo! Sports that he had provided dozens of Miami athletes with impermissible benefits, ranging from cash to prostitutes to an abortion. Following the report, the NCAA began to investigate and the school instituted self-imposed penalties, including a two-year bowl ban. The university’s president Donna Shalala, as well as the commissioner of the ACC, have said those penalties should be enough, but the NCAA has yet to make a decision about whether to issue more sanctions.
Further complicating the matter is the fact that Emmert has acknowledged a number of major mistakes during the course of the Miami investigation, but it has moved forward nonetheless. This has drawn harsh criticism from Shalala, who said earlier this year, “The lengthy and already flawed (NCAA) investigation has demonstrated a disappointing pattern of unprofessional and unethical behavior.”
In addition to Miami, the NCAA has been criticized for its handling of recent high-profile investigations into Penn State and UCLA athletics. But perhaps what’s most troubling is the way in which many schools are now adversarial with the organization they have essentially agreed to let police them.
It wasn’t always this way. A dozen years ago, as Sports Illustrated reported, NCAA enforcement director Tom Hosty said the process was both sides “trying to get the truth together.” Today, if a school doesn’t like the results, it lawyers up.
The findings and penalties against the University of Montana are serious. The school has chosen to accept the consequences, which is the right decision, especially following the much more serious federal departments of Education and Justice investigation into the university’s handling of reports of sexual assault.
But it’s hard to take the NCAA seriously. Fewer universities trust the decisions it makes. And, until they do, college athletics – especially football – will continue to be a free-for-all.