Sanctions against Seminoles only harm academic integrity

“NCAA hammers the Seminoles,” “Florida State hit hard,” and “Bowden suffers” are just a sampling of the headlines across the country after the NCAA finally passed down its “punishment” for Florida State’s numerous violations in a widespread academic fraud case dating back to 2006.

The academic fraud case spread throughout the entire Florida State athletic department. It caused two academic assistants, who gave improper assistance to student-athletes, to resign from the athletic department and 61 athletes representing ten different sports were involved. So, how exactly do the Seminoles get a slap on the wrist with only a few scholarships stripped from the 10 sports? What is really the meaning of the four year probation under the gutless watch of the NCAA?

In the not too distant past, the NCAA would impose the “death penalty”, stripping well over the two or three scholarships that Florida State got stripped of per year from multiple sports while simultaneously banning them from post-season play (i.e. the Alabama football squad in 2002). To quote fictional NASCAR driver Ricky Bobby, one of the great intellectuals of our time: “With all due respect, I didn’t realize you’d gotten experimental surgery to have your balls removed.”

Since Florida State cooperated with the NCAA during the investigation and imposed penalties upon themselves (they suspended 23 football players from the Music City Bowl in 2007), the NCAA was a little more lenient during its sentencing process. In the infractions report, the NCAA says, “Academic fraud is considered by the committee to be among the most egregious of NCAA infractions.” So, Florida State commits the equivalent of murder and gets a lesser penalty because they simply cooperated. Should the fact their football team suspended 23 players involved from one, fairly meaningless bowl game be enough to avoid harsher penalties?

It’s not entirely comparable to the violations levied against the Ohio State basketball program earlier in the decade because of the severity and wide range of the Florida State violations, but it’s similar in terms of self-sanctioned penalties. During Jim O’Brien’s reign as head coach, a booster for the Ohio State basketball program gave improper gifts to former player Boban Savovic. The university banned the team from post-season play in 2005 and reduced scholarships. In return for their cooperation, the NCAA gave the Buckeyes a minor penalty of three years probation and, now, essentially all is forgotten. It hardly had an effect on the 2007 Final Four run with über-recruits Greg Oden and Mike Conley Jr.

Does integrity exist in college athletics, today? We expect the athletic department and those involved with athletics to uphold the academic integrity of the university. What happens when they don’t? A reasonable person would expect the NCAA to step in and fix this conundrum. Yet when it comes to the biggest money making athletic departments in the country, it seems they don’t.