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6/12 Roundtable - Should Bama Vacate Wins?
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Alabama WR Julio Jones
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CollegeFootballNews.com
Posted Jun 12, 2009
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Do you agree with the idea of vacating wins as a punishment, like Florida State and now Alabama has to do? It's the Friday topic in the CFN Daily Roundtable Discussion.
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CFN Daily Roundtables
 June
12
Should Alabama Vacate Wins From 2005-2007?
Over the next several weeks, as part of the CFN 2009 Preview, we'll
examine some of the key questions going into the year with a
daily discussion of the big topics.
Pete
Fiutak,
CFN
Yes, I'm part of
the problem. You can check me out at
twitter.com/CFN_Fiu and find
out future roundtable topics and other random musings.
Q:
Do you agree with the idea of vacating wins as a punishment, like
Florida State and now Alabama has to do?
A:
Of course not, and I already touched on this yesterday (Vacate
This ... Alabama's NCAA Punishment).
My three main problems
are that 1) Alabama had already handled the situation and already called
itself out for the infractions and punished the players, 2) it's
not really a punishment that's going to do anything going forward, and
3) the violations have nothing whatsoever to do with the outcome of
those 21 games that have to be vacated.
You can't unring the
bell. The games were won, people showed up, paid their money for the
tickets, the bands played, there was tailgating, the games were on
television, and they were covered by all the media outlets. They
happened, Alabama won, and that can't be changed just because a bunch of
silly bureaucrats say so.
Now, if it was discovered that
Alabama's O line was juiced up on steroids (I'm not suggesting it was)
and therefore had an unfair competitive advantage, then I'd buy the idea
of taking away wins. I'm fine with the concept if someone was convicted
of point-shaving, spying New England Patriots style, or if something
else happened that ended up leading to Alabama's wins by ill-gotten
means.
I'm not for vacating wins if there was a violation of
NCAA rules or if something happened academically. Cheating in the
classroom isn't a football problem; it's a university problem. A strange
textbook issue that had nothing to do with those 21 wins shouldn't be
seen as a reason for the record books to be changed.
The biggest
problem in all of this is the utter spinelessness of the NCAA's
punishment. If everyone wants to follow the rules, as naive and
ridiculous as they are, then Alabama should be punished with the loss of
scholarships, TV time, and bowl eligibility. I'm not saying that should
happen, I have no problem with the infractions that are even more
bizarre than they first appeared on the surface (considering the players
involved made less than the bowl swag they get is worth, which is all
fine and dandy with the NCAA), but if you're going to punish, then
punish.
Richard
Cirminiello,
CFN
Q:
Do you agree with the idea of vacating wins as a punishment, like
Florida State and now Alabama has to do?
A:
I sure do.
I’m guessing I’m in the minority here, but I remain a
hard-liner when it comes to rules in all walks of society. If you or
your players break them, stop your whining, and take your punishment. If
that means vacating wins when ineligible student-athletes were played or
improper benefits were received, then so be it. Oh, I can hear the
cacophony of tired, overused dissent now. “It’s not like they killed
anyone” or “Everyone’s bending the rules”. Both might be true, but
neither justifies the wrong behavior.
Intercollegiate athletics
are not perfect. Never will be. However, one of the beauties of amateur
sports is that it strives for a higher ground, something beyond just
championships and profits. When that gets sullied, it’s incumbent upon
the NCAA to pull out the hammer in order to create a deterrent in the
future. Slaps on the wrist don’t work. Vacating wins gets people’s
attention. How often has SMU run afoul since suffering the Death
Penalty?
To all the folks doing their kumbayas for Florida State
and Alabama, I say rules still matter, whether or not you agree with
them. Florida State used ineligible players. Alabama athletes received
improper benefits. Where’s the grey area? Grow up, take your medicine,
and next time, be a little more diligent with the oversight of your
athletes.
Matthew
Zemek, CFN
Q:
Do you agree with the idea of vacating wins as a punishment, like
Florida State and now Alabama has to do?
A:
I’ve always found this punishment to be hollow. Perhaps it’s applicable, and perhaps the situation involving Florida State and Bobby Bowden will sting other would-be wrongdoers into a state of meek compliance. Any alteration of the official historical record might make fans and boosters think, “Whoa! I don’t want to have any more wins vacated from my school’s overall total.”
Why, then, does it seem that such hopes seem ridiculously naive and detached from reality? In basketball—every bit the shadowy scene that football is, if not more so—John Calipari is making a habit out of getting to Final Fours that wind up being vacated (or come close to that point). USC’s football program clearly benefited from shady dealings (whether or not Pete Carroll knew about them), and now USC hoops is swimming in darkness. Oh, and how about your 2009 Final Four-bound Connecticut Huskies men’s basketball team? In football or basketball, the cauldron of big-ticket Division I collegiate athletics has spiraled mightily out of control, with the NCAA hopelessly behind the curve despite a massive infusion of sensible leadership under current director Myles Brand. If the NCAA really wanted to punish member institutions for violations, it would: A) Make it harder for that program to accumulate dishonest wins in the future, and B) levy a fine that would go to some noble and securely non-corruptible cause within the realm of education and/or the community in which the offending university is based.
Understand this about the seamy underside of college athletics: Recruiting big-league ballplayers for King Football and Bedrock Basketball involves—at least in part—the seduction of young black men who think they can be part of that ever-so-small minority of professional athletes. The business of fielding a winning college football or basketball team—one that will reach a BCS bowl or a Final Four—demands an ability to make a hard sell to a player and his family about the prospect of using his collegiate years as a gateway toward a lucrative pro career. Calipari needed the services of Worldwide Wes to work the gray areas of the recruiting biz and make the slumbering program dominant again. How many other operatives run wild in the murky realms of big-time college sports? It’s more than a few, and the NCAA lacks the enforcement capabilities to crack down on these cases (which is partly due to the NCAA’s needless over-accumulation of regulations; that’s another story for another day, but it’s part of the bigger discussion that needs to emerge when NCAA rules are scrutinized).
Everything can’t be said on this many-tentacled issue; the bottom line is that any penalty for any violation (in any realm of endeavor, not just college sports) ought to achieve a worthwhile objective, and not merely represent a feel-good (or, for the offending institution, “feel-bad”) emotional band-aid.
Jon Miller,
Publisher, HawkeyeNation.com
Q:
Do you agree with the idea of vacating wins as a punishment, like
Florida State and now Alabama has to do?
A:
Unless a school has to vacate a National Championship, I really don't
see how vacating past wins is any sort of punishment for a college
football program. Either you think the rules they broke are serious
enough to penalize them now, or it's pure B.S. Does Alabama have to
return any of the bowl revenues they earned during the seasons where
they made it to the post season, allegedly between the 2005 and 2007
seasons? That would include one Independence Bowl, where they probably
lost money to begin with and a Cotton Bowl, which had to be a profitable
venture.
Do they have to return any of the TV money they received
from the SEC during those years where these infractions took place? Not
likely. So it's either a big deal, or it's not a big deal. Do I think
it's a good idea to have the book sale that their student athletes are
alleged to have had? No. Do I think it's worth vacating wins for
something like that? No, because if that's the only penalty, that they
have to break out the white out for next year's media guide, a) no one
really cares and b) no one is going to remember.
Hunter Ansley,
Publisher,
DraftZoo.com
Q:
Do you agree with the idea of vacating wins as a punishment, like
Florida State and now Alabama has to do?
A: I think
this punishment is ridiculous.
Not in a severity sense, but the actual
punishment is ludicrous.
This “stripping a team of wins” business has always
seemed like an idiotic punishment.
It reminds me of those courtroom situations you always see on TV
where the judge tells the jury to disregard something.
You know like “Ok jurors, you will disregard that.
I know that the accused just dropped a ski mask, rope, grappling
hooks, and the stolen diamond out of his duffle bag, but I’m ordering
you to pretend it didn’t happen because the prosecution messed up.”
No one on that jury has the ability to forget what happened.
They don’t keep those mind erasers from
Men In Black in the courtroom.
So how does telling a team that you’re taking away past wins do anything
to them? Are the new coaches and
administrators going to learn anything because of past mistakes made by
other people? The answer here is
that if you want to punish someone, then you punish them going forward.
You don’t erase wins. You
can’t take away the fact that those teams were victorious in those
games. You just can’t undo the
past. Hasn’t anyone in the NCAA
ever seen Back to the Future?
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