NCAA Punishing the Wrong People
That wonderful time of year has arrived. Football season. The pros are playing their meaningless preseason games, and the college kids have started their bowl quests. Excitement is high to say the least.
Unfortunately this time of year usually brings along a new college football scandal.
Somewhere right now a star player is driving a car bought by a booster, or his relatives are living in a house bought by an agent. None of us are shocked by this anymore; we pretty much know it goes on.
The most recent schools allegedly in violation of NCAA rules include USC and West Virginia.
I applaud the NCAA for their efforts at trying to keep the playing field even. The job is a thankless one, where violations usually come too late to properly punish those who are involved.
Let's look at the USC and WVU cases; specifically what do they have in common?
Both schools were incredibly successful on the field and both coaches turned that success into higher paying jobs elsewhere. Although there are some that would say (myself included), the true reason they left the programs is they knew the violations and the penalties that come with them were imminent.
So what does the NCAA do?
The only thing they can, which is penalize the university. Problem is, all the violators are mostly gone on to greener (money) pastures. As a result, a new coach and new players get penalized for past sins, which hardly seems fair.
The NCAA is not to blame here. By the time they are done with their investigation, most of the guilty parties have moved on. Seems to me the NCAA is punishing the wrong people. Sure, the university should be fined and any money that they received from bowl games should be taken away.
They ultimately are responsible for the coach, as he's their employee. Why not suspend him and make a new program think twice about hiring someone they may be hearing rumors about?
Let's stop punishing the kids who did nothing wrong. As for coaches like Pete Carroll, who leave for the pros, we can only hope being coach of Seattle will be punishment enough.
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