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NCAA Hammers Sampson; Lets IU Skate

The Indiana University/Kelvin Sampson infractions case was resolved today with an announcement by the NCAA infractions committee of the penalties it had decided to hand out to IU, Sampson and former IU assistant coach Rob Senderoff. The NCAA, despite finding IU guilty of failure to monitor Sampson, which is the most significant (or the slightly watered down version) finding it can make against a university, accepted the university self-imposed sanctions. Those amounted to little more than a slap on the wrist and involved no loss of television time, post-season play or scholarships. All the NCAA did was place IU on three years probation - big whoop.

The penalties levied against Sampson and Senderoff are a different matter altogether. Both received show cause orders, which essentially prohibits any NCAA member institution from hiring either of them. Sampson got five years and Senderoff got three. Kent State, where Senderoff is now coaching is going to ask for an interpretation as to whether it is subject to the show cause order. Five years is the second longest penalty handed out to a Division I coach; former Cal coach Todd Bozeman got seven years.

I don't want to say that IU got off easy because of its name, or because Myles Brand used to be its president. I think it's just another example of the lack of integrity of the NCAA enforcement process. The Committee on Infractions refuses to put any teeth behind its rules. Sure, the Committee penalized Sampson, but it did nothing to IU which hired him knowing he was under NCAA probation for rules violation at the time he was hired. If they really were all about a culture of compliance as they claimed in their defense, why hire a known cheater? Until the NCAA starts handing out penalties that involve loss of postseason play, television money and scholarships, cheating will continue because there is no downside. Schools only react to loss of money, so the NCAA has to hit them where it hurts. Start taking away TV appearances and strip cheaters of their share of tournament revenue from their conferences for any year that the school is on probation. I bet that a few years of that will start a clean-up a lot faster than a bunch of Myles Brands speeches.

Full post as published by Sports Biz on November 25, 2008 (boomark / email).