College football has had very noteworthy scandals over the years. Just do a Google search for “college football” and “scandal”, and any number of incidents pop up. A college football coach — who I called legendary up until 2011 — was disgraced due to the actions of an assistant. A quarterback who currently plays for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had his share of scandal when he was in college at Florida State.
Some scandals are more severe than others, and the most famous of which in my mind is the scandal that involved Southern Methodist University in the late 1980s. If you’ve never heard that story, SMU was found guilty of bribing recruits to get them to commit to the Mustangs. The NCAA took action and leveled the following penalties:
- The 1987 season was canceled; only conditioning drills were permitted during the 1987 calendar year.
- All home games in 1988 were canceled. SMU was allowed to play their seven regularly scheduled away games so that other institutions would not be financially affected.
- The team’s existing probation was extended until 1990. Its existing ban from bowl games and live television was extended to 1989.
- SMU lost 55 new scholarship positions over 4 years.
- SMU was required to ensure that Owen and eight other boosters previously banned from contact with the program were in fact banned, or else face further punishment.
- The team was allowed to hire only five full-time assistant coaches, instead of the typical nine.
- No off-campus recruiting was permitted until August 1988, and no paid visits could be made to campus by potential recruits until the start of the 1988-89 school year.
- It was the most hardcore penalty ever levied by the NCAA, and it destroyed the SMU football program. When June Jones led the Mustangs to a bowl victory in 2009, it was the first bowl game SMU won since the “death penalty”.
Why am I bringing this up?
Because if I was the president of the NCAA, I would hand the Baylor Bears football program the same kind of penalty.
Two days ago, a federal lawsuit was filed against the Baylor Bears that claimed that 31 football players at the university engaged in 52 “acts of rape” over four years. The acts included alleged five gang rapes — some involving ten or more players. Allegations of video recording and sharing these acts among teammates were also included in the lawsuit. Elizabeth Doe, a Virginia woman and the latest victim to come forward, told lawyers that she was allegedly gang raped in 2013 by two Baylor football players.
Allegations also state coaches of the Baylor football program used members of the “Baylor Bruins” — a hostess program for the university for new students — to have sex with recruits and players. This allegation was refuted by an unnamed former assistant football coach on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” program.
“There’s no way. There is no damn way. Where’s that come from? How does that ever get dreamt up? What makes someone put that together for a lawsuit? It’s just unbelievable.”
The Baylor Bruins were disbanded last year and replaced with co-ed volunteers who give campus tours and welcome all undergraduate students, not just football players.
Heads have already rolled as a result of the massive amount of allegations. Former president Kenneth Starr (yes, THAT Ken Starr), athletic director Ian McCaw (currently the AD at Liberty University), and former head coach Art Briles were all removed from their positions after an independent investigation revealed that practices were used to make women feel unsafe on Baylor campus. Practices included discouraging victims and keeping allegations against Baylor football players quiet.
Where is NCAA President Mark Emmert?
As it stands, the NCAA has nothing in place at the moment to penalize athletes or schools. A “resolution” was passed two years ago by the Board of Governors to provide a framework for how schools should handle sexual assault charges. Last August, the leaderships of Divisions I, II, and III were urged to draft legislation so that the NCAA could educate the growing number of sexual assault charges at college campuses as well as penalize athletes and schools who are charged and convicted.
In an interview with CBS This Morning in September, Emmert said, “That same board is in the midst of formulating whether or not that policy should become an enforceable rule, a rule that would allow the national association to go in and punish schools specifically.”
This means that the NCAA technically doesn’t have anything solid in place. How? Given the high-profile nature of many sexual and domestic assault charges over the last decade in not just football, but all sports, how was there not legislation in place after the Ray Rice situation? That was the perfect time to get ahead on this. You didn’t, and then the Jameis Winston allegations happened.
At this point, there’s no excuse anymore. Legislation to give the NCAA power to punish players and programs is now mandatory. The obvious and immediate argument is always the “innocent until proven guilty” phrase, and that the legal process should be taken to conclusion. That’s fine if you’d like to go that route, but here’s another cliché for you:
“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
Fifty-two acts of rape over four years isn’t just a fire. It’s a raging inferno ignited with rocket fuel … booster rocket fuel.
A Wall Street Journal article said that the NCAA won’t levy sweeping penalties to Baylor University similar to the ones handed to Penn State in the Jerry Sandusky scandal: four-year bowl ban, vacated wins, scholarship reductions and a $60 million fine.
Why not?
That same WSJ article hinted that penalty “backfired” on the NCAA because they weren’t initially comfortable with handling the Penn State situation. Well, that’s tough, boys. YOU’RE THE GOVERNING BODY. Do you want the NCAA to become more of a disgrace as a result of the inaction and handling by Baylor University?
There’s nothing wrong with slamming the hammer when it is called for. You did it in the 1980s with SMU. You did it with Penn State, and I thought that was necessary. With Baylor University, you’re talking about a lack of control for a four-year period, over 50 sexual assault allegations in that same time frame, and borderline prostitution if the coaches used the Baylor Bruins to have sex with players and recruits.
The NCAA should bring the hammer down with a message, and that message is simple. If the NCAA would like my personal suggestion — because I’m available to help — here is my hypothetical conversation with current Baylor University President David E. Garland.
“Hi, David. How are you? So, we’re going to hand out some penalties. There’s no way out of it, and there’s no talking us out of it either. First, you’re ineligible for bowls for six years. In that same six-year period, you have no football scholarships. They don’t exist. They have officially evaporated into thin air. Take that money you were going to spend on scholarships and donate it to women’s shelters and other similar organizations. I have a list of suggestions if you need. Now, write me another check for $75 million. That’s the fine. Lastly, take that 2011 Alamo Bowl trophy and that 2012 Holiday Bowl trophy and leave it on my desk. They belong to me, now. That’s all, David. Have a nice day.”
The message should be loud and clear.
“We must kill Baylor for what they’ve done and what they failed to do.”
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