Why Playing Spot The Violation is a Problem

Let's Take A Quiz - Phineas and Ferb Lyrics + HQ (MP3 Download) (via PhineasandFerbSongs)


Yes, let's take a quiz. Presented by Bill Lubinger of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and with a tip of the hat to Mizzou alumnus Graham Watson of Yahoo! Sports for linking to it originally. Let's look at four scenarios in this case study. For each one, I want you to determine if it is an NCAA violation or if it is something that is permissible.
Again, you only have the information laid out in each case; no additional information for the presented scenario is forthcoming:

1. A "super fan" of the local college or university team is having a dinner for one at the local sports bar. He notices that a couple of the guys from the basketball team are sitting a few tables over watching a game. The guy calls the waitress over and orders a pitcher of soda and a bucket of wings to be sent to the guys. This guy is just a "super fan"; he is not an official booster. Violation or permissible?

2. The star middle linebacker has been invited to speak at a local Pop Warner football league's year end banquet. He is not being paid for this speaking engagement. He attends and gives a rousing speech. The grateful parents who are organizing the dinner invite the linebacker to stick around for dinner. They are serving chicken, scalloped potatoes, salad and chocolate cake. Violation or permissible?

3. Before the linebacker headed off to the banquet, he stopped by the football offices to chat with his head coach. The coach suggests that the player wear a tie for this speaking engagement, reaches into his desk and pulls out a tie for the player to wear that evening. Violation or permissible?

4. The compliance office receives an anonymous call from a potential tipster. This person is calling the compliance office because they have learned that the university is paying for contact lenses and braces for student athletes. Violation or permissible?

I'll give you the answers, provided by the compliance officers at the University of Akron and at Kent State University at the end of this piece.

But let's look at the above scenarios for a second and think about this. In each of these four scenarios, something that most folks would perceive as relatively innocuous is occurring, right? Buying a round of drinks and some food for basketball players. Contact lenses and braces (while not cheap are not as expensive as a customized low rider). A catered meal as a way of saying thanks for speaking tonight. Loaning a tie to someone who forgot to put one on.
I'm not going to say that those who were in the Tat Five are blameless, or that they shouldn't have been suspended. Nor am I going to say that Jim Tressel shouldn't have "resigned." The circumstances surrounding what's going on there, or what went on at North Carolina with Marvin Austin and company last season are different, and each case should be examined in detail for what is available.
On the whole, though, I wonder if it isn't necessary to do a full examination of the rule book. It might be time for an overhaul, because, quite frankly, there's no way that the average student-athlete (or even coaches, for that matter) is going to be able to know everything that is in there.
This link will take you to the latest edition of the Division I manual. Go check it out. It's free to download (and I do every year). It's a 444 page PDF, and quite hefty if you have a paper copy (I have an old paper one from about 2005).
It is dense, it is verbose, it is not easy to read and interpret unless you spend a lot of quality time with it. I am increasingly finding it harder and harder to say that as a student-athlete you need to be familiar with the sections that apply to you and you need to know them forwards, backwards and sideways.
Yes, I know that compliance and life skills are there to help with the interpretation of rules and policy for them, and that they do educate student-athletes on the issues that are relevant to them at the beginning of the year.
But there also has to be a reason that lots of schools pile up secondary violations out the wazoo; it isn't easy to keep this crap straight.
I think that the retreat that Mark Emmert has called for August 9-10 is good on its surface, and I'll have more on it later this summer. Part of reforming intercollegiate athletics, to me, involves looking at the rule book and deciding how much of this is actually viable and realistic in the 21st century and what rules make sense.
Let's not focus solely on enforcement; let's look at holistic reform from the ground up. It's time for a new model.
Answer key:

1. Violation. The student-athletes should say "No, thank you" to the soda and wings. It would constitute an extra benefit because they would be receiving it because of their athletics status and because free wings and soda are not generally available to the public. Also, you could argue the person may not have been a booster before, but is one now. Per an NCAA bylaw, he "provided benefits to enrolled student-athletes." By triggering that status, he now retains it eternally.

2. Permissible. The student-athlete can accept actual and necessary expenses for participating. He is also allowed to receive a meal for his participation, so the cost of the meal is not an issue. Interacting with the banquet attendees would not be an issue, either, since they are not of prospect age and the player is not a coach. If the parents insist the player join them for dinner some other time outside of the banquet, he can accept an occasional meal in the parents' home. Institutional discretion sets the definition of "occasional." At Akron, for instance, the definition is once a month, on average.

3. Possible violation. A tie, or other dress clothes for that matter, could be bought by the student-athlete using the Student Athlete Fund -- a fund provided by the NCAA to help them cover the difference between their scholarship and the cost to attend school. However, institutions are not allowed to loan dress clothes. If a school requires a suit/jacket and tie, the items would have to be bought through the fund. Even if the linebacker returned the tie after the event, it could still be viewed as a violation.

4. Permissible. Those items could be considered necessary for participation. Since they are medically related, they would be permissible if the school's budget and policies allowed for them.

Jim Tressel and the Wise Monkeys: When Players Try to Get Paid, Who Should Be Blamed?

(This piece originally was posted on Rock M Nation.)


My son turns four just after the first game of this coming season. Unless some weird recessive genes kick in, he probably won't be playing Division 1 FBS football when it's time for him to go to college. (And unless some other things about the game change, he won't be playing football at all. But that's another topic.)

If he does somehow manage to become a football star, though, my wife and I will have to be very careful in the vetting process. We'd want him to go someplace where he can be successful, a place where he'd enjoy the campus life (but not too much), a place where he can get a good education in a field he wants to study. And selfishly, it would need to be somewhere his mother and I would enjoy visiting a few time a year.

I'd want him to play for a good coaching staff. I want his position coach to be someone we really connect with and that he connects with as well; a coach that we'd trust our son with.

I'd want his head coach to be someone we could connect with as well; he should also be someone we would feel comfortable entrusting our son with.

Oh, and that coach should also be brilliant during game days and have a little of the three wise monkeys in him the rest of the week.

Yeah, the three wise monkeys. Mizaru, Kikazaru and Iwazaru. "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."

I mean, what program doesn't want a head coach that sees nothing going on that's wrong, hears no malfeasance and doesn't say a word about wrongdoing because, well, there's nothing wrong.

Isn't that how this is supposed to work? Aren't head coaches supposed to be kept out of the loop when players are driving fancy cars or showing up with a lot of tattoos when you know that said players isn't from a background that can afford new cars or (literally) thousands of dollars of tattoos.

I have one tattoo. It's not small, and it's on my right bicep. I live in a not that cheap part of the country, and my simple tattoo cost $100. Even allowing for things to be cheaper in Columbus, Ohio than they are in Las Vegas, there's no way that somebody on the Ohio State coaching staff shouldn't have caught on to the fact that their players—many of whom are from disadvantaged or highly disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds—suddenly had half or full sleeves of ink.

It's not like they were saving up refund checks from their scholarships.

Yes, Ohio State is an easy target because they are in the news right now. But look around at any of the FBS programs. Don't tell me that athletes aren't trading on their name recognition. Given the way that the system is setup for some of them now, it's the only thing that they have to use.

Does that make it right? No. Even if the rules that are in place are crappy, that doesn't mean you have the right to go around breaking them and flaunt the fact that you're breaking the rules.

But for a coach to act like the three wise monkeys, or even worse, act shocked that there is gambling going on in here, is even more worrisome to me. Does all of the detail work that goes into film study and game planning, the work of hiring a staff and working on recruiting, helping to gladhand alumni and do media appearances...does all of that detail work and micromanagement leave one blind to the fact that players are accepting graft from a variety of sources?

The question, I guess, is this: Who should ultimately be held responsible when players get in trouble for selling memorabilia and merchandise? Does it strictly depend on who is doing it? Or, if it's been going on for almost a decade and the coach(es) either actively or inactively turned a blind eye to what was going on, do people higher up the chain need to be held accountable?

Lost Soul, Empty Vest

(This column originally appeared on Southern Pigskin)

He was the Senator. The Sweater Vest. The Righteous One who did things “the right way.”


In the end, though, he turned out to be a lost soul in an empty vest.

Jim Tressel “resigned” Monday. Walked away. Or maybe he ran. Perhaps he was pushed as more and more details from this sordid affair continue to dribble out of the holes from sources along the Olentangy River in Columbus.

He might hate this characterization, but Tressel was somewhat deified. That is something that is to be expected of a coach’s fanbase to be sure, especially when that coach does what the previous coach never seemed to do—in this case, beat Michigan.

To a certain extent, though, Tressel was also godded up by a complicit coterie of media and analysts eager to find what I would call the “anti-Saban.” A coach who wasn’t unnecessarily bristly with the media, with a certain amount of charm and charisma who could field a national title contender just about every season with something resembling balance in his life. It wasn’t just football 24-7-365.

Wow. Looks like a lot of folks were fooled.

It’s hard not to be cynical in this day and age when covering or following college football. It’s not like scandals are something new that popped up today; one of the most famous cases (the SMU “Death Penalty”) happened 25 years ago. Every few years, there seems to be some kind of tale.

Hell, during last season we had the North Carolina Agent-gate situation, with several overlapping suspensions derailing what should have been an ACC-title for the Tarheels.

Oh, and there was that little situation with the preacher’s son and a transfer of schools and $180,000. I wonder what the resolution of that case was?

But this time it is different. This is Ohio State, members of the illustrious Big Ten Conference—a conference that would never have one of its members stoop so low as to besmirch themselves with even the hint of a scandal. Let alone a scandal of this proportion.

Things like this don’t happen with Big Ten teams, where players are getting tattoos in exchange for trinkets or game-used gear. The Big Ten doesn’t have players and their families getting access to nice cars under questionable circumstances.

Quarterbacks of Big Ten teams don’t get caught driving multiple cars over a three year period because their car is “in the shop” or because they want “to get the opinion of their family” about a car and yet they never seem to commit to a new ride.

Maybe we all should have listened when Maurice Clarett spoke up in 2003.

Turns out that much like Jose Canseco, even whistleblowers with checkered pasts can be right.

B-U-S-T-E-D!

(This column originally appeared on Southern Pigskin)

Legacy is an interesting word. For Ohio State's Jim Tressel, his legacy involves Marurice Clarett, Troy Smith and now Tatgate. But hey, he beats Michigan.


If there is one maxim that web 2.0 has taught us here in the 21st century it is this:

You can’t take anyone being a “good guy” on faith anymore.

Sure, there may be people that do good things, but it is becoming harder and harder to find a good guy.Don’t believe me?

Look at what is happening right now in Columbus, Ohio.

Oh sure, Jim Tressel has had a bit of a reputation outside of Ohio as a shady figure, a “Teflon coach” to a certain degree.

Maurice Clarett’s situation. Troy Smith being suspended for a bowl game for improper benefits. Tatgate.

But Tressel has managed to escape having anything stick to him until this week, when Ohio State was forced to admit that Tressel knew about the situation with the Ohio State players (including star quarterback Terrell Pryor) receiving improper benefits in the form of tattoos by trading or selling various awards and trinkets.
Ohio State reported the violations in December 2010 and the players were still allowed to play in the Sugar Bowl this past January before serving out suspensions at the start of the 2011 season.

Apparently, Jim Tressel found out about the situation and what the players were doing…in April of 2010.

April 2010?

Yes, April 2010. That means that Tressel knowingly played players that should have been suspended pending investigation. Hell, use the catch-all “suspended for violating team rules” line until the investigation is complete and call it a day.

How would that have been any less damning that what has happened over the past three months?

Did I mention that on September 13, Tressel signed an NCAA Certificate of Compliance that stated that he had reported any known violations to the NCAA?

Whoops. That means that not only did Tressel lie to his own athletic director and compliance department, he also lied to the NCAA.

When Bruce Pearl was caught in lies regarding improper recruiting, he was suspended by Mike Slive for half of conference play and fined $1 million by Tennessee.

Ohio State suspended Tressel for two games and fined him $250,000.

I’m sorry, but that’s not enough.

Ohio State had a chance to make a stand and didn’t. If some of the players involved in this situation got suspended for five games, Tressel needed to be gone for at least as long – if not longer.

He is the head coach. Ostensibly, he is the man in charge (and if Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee is to be believed, he is truly the man in charge at Ohio State – even above him) and he should be held to a higher standard.

If you write books about leadership, and talk and preach about instilling integrity in the men that you are leading and then don’t walk the talk, you should be punished accordingly.

Let’s see if Jim Delany or the NCAA will do what Ohio State’s leadership was too spineless to do.

I don’t have a whole lot of faith, though.

Where I spent my spring hiatus: Looking for paid work and getting a wonderful unpaid offer

This hiatus was not fueled by wanderlust, or boredom as much as it was fueled by a need to focus on finding gainful employment for myself in my current field.

As the end of my contract arrives in two weeks, I have to date been unsuccessful in securing a new position, so a major transition is on the horizon unless a deus ex machina arrives by Thursday, June 30 at 5pm PDT.

So there hasn't been too much writing going on for me at all. At least, not until a couple of weeks ago.

A long time friend of mine, Bill Connelly of Football Outsiders and Football Study Hall, co-manages an SBNation site called Rock M Nation. It's a blog for Mizzou fans (my alma mater). He asked me to come aboard as an author for the site, covering national college football issues. I eagerly accepted without hesitation (once I got the emails and Twitter DMs).

Um...wait. Isn't this already a national college football blog? And don't you do something similar for Southern Pigskin already? Don't the call you their "National Football Columnist" when you go on The Fan Sports Radio in Coastal Georgia?

Yes, yes this is already a national college football blog, and yes, I do write a national column for Southern Pigskin. And I plan to continue this blog, and that column for Southern Pigskin in addition to the work I do for Rock M Nation.

I've still got to figure out the rhythm of things, but once the season starts, Tuesdays will probably be my day at Rock M Nation (it's floating right now), Thursdays will typically be my day at Southern Pigskin, and the rest of the time I will be here.

It'll take me a little time to get reorganized here; I was away a lot longer than I initially planned. But once I shake the cobwebs out we should be back in business for a good while.

In the meantime, I will post the work I did for Southern Pigskin and for Rock M Nation. Those will roll out later today.