The world of NCAA recruiting
 

Report: Southern California Trojans Tim Floyd paid $1K to O.J. Mayo handler - ESPN

Tim Floyd has been accused of paying $1000 cash to middleman who helped steer OJ Mayo to USC.

Update
 

Sufficient Penalty?

USC punishes men's hoops team with ban on postseason play - CBK News - FOX Sports on MSN

This is the part which I don't like. Why should the transgressions of the former people prevent the current ones from playing in the NCAA tourney? Not right. :( What should be done is that the current USC team is eligible for post-season play, but the school cannot earn any money for participating. The school should have to pick up the tab on its own. That would be a more fitting punishment in this case.

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quoted from the article:
Kevin O'Neill took over for Floyd and has guided the Trojans to a 10-4 record, including 2-0 in the Pac-10, and an eight-game winning streak.

"I think the university did the right thing in self-imposing sanctions. I respect and understand the action that was taken," O'Neill said in the statement. "While it is unfortunate that our players won't have the chance to compete in the postseason that just makes every game for us now a postseason game."

Update - Good Luck UTEP
 

UTEP hires Tim Floyd as basketball coach - College Basketball - Rivals.com

Welcome back......:o

To follow up on Nevada's proposal, the penalties should follow the coach for as long as they stick with the schools. If a school loses scholarships or post season eligibility, any school who hires that coach should also face the same penalty until the penalized school has served its time.

While I appreciate the sentiment, and on one level I agree, I just don't think it will logistically work. For example, if it's not right that the current USC players have to pay for Tim Floyd's transgressions, it almost seems more wrong that UTEP's players would have to pay, simply because they have a new coach. And, how do you separate penalties that occur from actions by an assistant coach, administrator, or booster? If the NCAA imposes sanctions because a booster provided benefits to players, and the perhaps the coach gets fired or resigns because the school feels "they should've known what was going on", would you say those same penalties follow that coach as if they had provided the benefits themselves?

Sorry, I'm just in a "party-pooper" mood. :D

You make great points about which I don't care. :D

In practice, the UTEP players wouldn't pay the penalty because the UTEP AD wouldn't have hired Floyd, and Kentucky wouldn't have hired whatshisass. There is a certain level of institutional control that should fall on the coach. If you'd like, we could limit the coach sanctions to situations where the coach was directly involved.

Would that make you feel warm, fuzzy, and in a party mood?

Warm? Maybe. Fuzzy? In some places. Party mood? Ask me again in an hour and a half, when I get off work...

In practice, health care reform sould only involve a couple of paragraphs. But instead we're left with a bill the approximate size of the NCAA Compliance Manual. And both are equally understandable, with similar unintended consequences.

Well, crap, there goes my semi-warm and fuzzy feeling. :D

How About a Statute of Limitations of Sorts?
 

If said coach agrees not to coach for X years based on the severity of the incident then a school can hire him after that time with no penalty.

Old school gets fine or whatever penalty. Coach gets his punishment. Hiring school is on notice as they know what they are getting. Current players don't suffer.

Agreed. That's why I suggested the coach's penalty would only follow him for as long as the guilty school suffered its penalty.

You had to go and ruin my perfectly mediocre day.

You seem to suggest a coach be punished when they may not have had anything to do with an infraction...but are connected by association. Are you saying that guessing that they were involved is adequate? Or that they were an acquaintance of someone who was?

Exactly...only if they were directly involved as shown by actual evidence....not guessing that the must have had something to do with becasue they knew someone who was.

Are you an official who guesses that a foul must have been committed or charges it to all players within 5 feet or do you actually have to see it? :rolleyes:

Ok, so what specific number of years goes with what specific action? What level of proof is needed to justify a penalty? Iow, do you use a "civil suit" level of proof, or a "beyond a reasonable doubt" level? Who gets to decide? Are there different levels of penalties for different levels of proof? Do you assign a penalty based on the ever-popular NCAA "lack of institutional control"? Can a coach be released from his penalty earlier, much like an early release from prison, for good behavior? Since we are now talking about the ability of denying a coach the right to employment in their chosen profession, there may be civil rights issues that need to be addressed in these regulations.

So many questions, so many trees to kill in preparing the actual regulations...

Ok, I'm back in full "party-pooper" mood.

All good points. As in any "crime" each case would be decided on the evidence. No two cases exactly alike. Think of how some of our favorite multiple offenders would get handled.....

Oh, and you're welcome! ;)

Now, in Snaq's defense, the NCAA actually does use this standard vs. what we do as officials during a game. This was demonstrated quite clearly back when there was an investigation started against IL back when Bruce Pearl was an assistant coach at IA under Tom Davis. He used an illegal wiretap to tape a conversation with Deon Thomas, who was being recruited by both schools, but ended up choosing IL. The investigation ended up finding no official major violations by IL, but the NCAA still invoked major sanctions because the lead investigator, Mike Slive, said even though there were no major infractions that could be proven, there was enough circumstantial evidence that "something" had to have happened.

Hmm, maybe this is a way to get around killing a bunch of trees by writing out all the rules, but rather we can write them as we go along. I'm starting to feel warm and fuzzy again...

Yeah thanks for that.

I operate under the assumption here, that just as the school takes responsibility for the boosters in these situations, so do the coaches. The NCAA has no problem sanctioning a school for something that happened even if they didn't know about it. As head of the program, the coach should be held accountable, too.

I'd be willing to accept this compromise; under which it appears Mr. Floyd would be liable.

Seriously? No, but I am one who will tack on an indirect TF to a head coach whose bench spouts off and earns a T.

If the penalty stuck to the coach as well as the violating program, we might see two things:

1. coaches becoming more closely involved in preventing violations, and

2. coaches not getting hired so quickly after they left a disgraced program.

Now: what would the unintended consequences be?

Calipari won't get another job at all after the NCAA takes away all of this year's Kentucky wins?

Now I'm feeling all warm and fuzzy; that would be like Christmas.

Only if willingness to cheat weren't considered a job qualification at quite so many big-time NCAA schools.

In Calipari, Kentucky knew exactly what they were getting, and got exactly what they wanted.

Very true...and sad.

On a similar note
 

Updated: March 30, 2010, 7:38 PM ET
Committee denies Sidney appeal


<cite class="source"> Associated Press
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<!-- end mod-article-title --> <!-- begin story body --> STARKVILLE, Miss. -- The Division I Student-Athlete Reinstatement Committee has denied Mississippi State's appeal of the NCAA's penalty against basketball player Renardo Sidney.
The independent committee's decision closes the 11-month investigation into the top prospect's eligibility, a Tuesday news release from the school says.
The NCAA accused Sidney of lying to investigators and ruled earlier this month that he will have to sit out about nine games next season and repay extra benefits he received as a high school player in Los Angeles.
The school only appealed the suspension and did not appeal the $11,800 financial penalty, money the NCAA says Sidney received because of his future earning potential.

I'm waiting for Camron to come along and challenge you to prove it...
:D

I'd think they (and the NCAA) know a lot more than you do about what he did or didn't do. If he were the cheater you thought he was, they wouldn't touch him. They coudn't afford to.

How about they sanction the team manager, AD, NCAA compliance director, the university president, or a biology teacher. :rolleyes:

The coach is an employee of the school/team/athletic department.

I can see holding the institution responsible but holding a specific person responsible without specific evidence pointing to them would never fly. It would go straight to the courts and would get shot down pretty quickly.