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| Screw the NCAA. Ha. |
Ed. Note: Understanding the whole NCAA situation is no small task. Here's ProveIt with what we hope is his first of many guest posts here at ITS. Leave your thoughts and comments down below!
The laughable effect of the NCAA’s sanctions isn’t likely to give anyone pause. 3 scholarships a year for 3 years and a 1 year post season ban resulted in responses ranging from “…and what else? Over 1 year of investigation this is all?” to the ever popular sentiments “Bite me!”and “FFFFUUUU!”
What is less laughable is the rationale in the COI report (Committee of Infractions) though Tressel and the gear for tattoos there wasn’t anything new other than sanctions against Tressel.
The rest of the report starts with a false finding, and goes downhill from there…
Athlete Punishment - Work not performed (page 11 top item A)The claim is 7 athletes were paid a combined total of $1605 for work not performed (around 2 days of labor per athlete).
The evidence – 1 hastily prepared letter from the employer listing the hours worked and hourly rate, and documents which were cited as evidence by the athletes they did work the hours (obviously not definitive). That is it – nothing more.
The athletes wanted to challenge the COI. They presented detailed records of hours worked, corresponding cell phone records, bank account information, incorrect hourly rate, and testimony from their supervisors showing the hastily prepared letter from the employer was inaccurate. The NCAA found this counter to their conclusion and therefore ignored it. So much for the NCAA keeping the athletes a priority.
Now how about some critical thinking… is all of the information provided by the athletes false, or is the 1 hastily prepared letter used as evidence wrong? if DiGeronimo wanted to pad the paychecks, wouldn’t he have entered the corresponding number of false hours correctly (all of the amounts were in multiples of hourly wages)? We aren’t talking about large amounts involved –wouldn’t DiGeronimo just given a couple of hundred dollar handshakes if he wanted to improperly pass money?
Gene Smith failed the athletes in not pursuing further (perhaps a simple request to verify the hours and hourly rate with the employer?). The NCAA failed to undertake a basic follow-up - after being presented with the evidence by the athlete’s representative, they simply denied it for consideration. Gene Smith failed the program by refusing to challenge the NCAA’s findings.
It is not known why Smith didn’t follow through. It would have been a simple matter to verify and provide testimony from the employer and supervisors. The prevailing sentiment is that Gene was covering for the failures of his compliance department. I think it is just another display of Smith’s incompetence.
The result of a reversal would have left the NCAA with nominal basis for an FTM (Failure to Monitor) An FTM finding is where the NCAA determines the absence of common monitoring practices lead to a violation – without a violation, there is no basis for an associated FTM finding.
The 5 student athletes receiving payment for an appearance at a charity event had already been punished by the NCAA.
Lost in the hype – DiGeronimo provided the $800 to cover expenses of the 7 athletes attending the fund raiser; T. Pryor decided to split the money among just 4 athletes. The event was approx. 130 miles from campus; IRS mileage reimbursement was approx. 55 cents/mile at the time and meal per diem around $20 for around $163 per athlete, or up to $1,140 total (more than the $800 paid). The problem wasn’t the amount; it was completion of the necessary forms.
How important are these forms? According to the COI, these forms are important enough to cite as 1/3 of the basis for FTM.
This is a genuine NCAA major violation – 7 athletes were cited for attending an otherwise permissible charity event without getting prior approval directly from the program. The violation isn’t participation; it was not filling out the forms.
What type of dregs of society volunteer at a charity event without filling out the forms? According to the NCAA, this act is severe enough to form 1/3 of the basis for FTM program sanctions.
1. The players might not have been overpaid (which did not occur).
2. The players might have been reimbursed for the charity event differently.
3. The players might have gotten prior approval to attend the charity event… because we can’t just have players volunteering at charity events willy-nilly.
The NCAA credits OSU for removing all special privileges to DiGeronimo in 2006. (page 16 Committee Rationale Paragraph 2). What the COI found but finds inconvenient to include here is the loss of privileges was a program wide reduction in privileges to everyone, not a result of NCAA violations (page 12 top). There was no reason to believe DiGeronimo had had broken any NCAA regulations. The closest DiGeronimo came to improper actions was the use of players at an event for his charity without prior approval 5 years ago.
In case you still think DiGeronimo is just another booster buying access while using his charity as cover, his average yearly donation to OSU was about $2500 – about the same donation required to be eligible to purchase season football tickets and parking permit. His largest donation to OSU was $5000 for a new building fundraiser. He may be juvenile, but DiGeronimo is also a charitable business owner, not the slime ball buying access the COI frames him to be.
The COI carefully chooses its words to make the loss of privileges appear as evidence the program was aware of improper activities by DiGeronimo, and make him appear as the stereotypical booster buying access. This is the 1st of many times the COI uses sophistry to manufacture supporting evidence.
(Definition of sophistry - fallacious assertions that replaces facts and evidence with seemingly plausible statements that are purposely misleading.)
COI Summary Rationale – The program is faulted for not checking if the players were still making off campus contact with a booster in good standing, which could have reduced the chances of infractions resulting from 7 athletes not filling out the proper forms before working at a charity event, and the infraction of overpayment for work which didn’t happen might not have happened (this is not a typo).
Thank god the NCAA is on top of this… because association with boosters with no history of improper activities is... wait… isn’t association with boosters in good standing the norm?
A. Reinforced to student-athletes that they could not attend the charity event unless they were directly told by the compliance staff that their attendance was approved; (page 16 bottom)
The COI carefully chooses the term “Reinforce” to ignore their earlier discovery that all 7 athletes were well versed with the NCAA rules – they repeatedly ask the charity if they had received prior approval from the program, a charity representative repeatedly told the athletes they had program approval. (page 15 paragraph 3)
C. Contacted the charity in 2011 to inform it that student-athletes could not attend the event unless the charity submitted the appropriate forms to the compliance staff;(page 17 top)
The COI also ignores their finding that the compliance department was unaware of any involvement of athletes at this charity’s events since 2006. Apparently the NCAA expects programs to maintain contact with every passing outside entity for 5+ years after they are involved with the program. (I couldn’t make this up)
COI Summary Rationale – The NCAA found OSU did not provide sufficient training to a charity. OSU did not know the charity was using athletes for the 2011 event, but should have because they knew the charity had used athletes in 2006 (I couldn’t make this up).
The program did not remind the athletes of rules regarding involvement in charities. Their demonstrated familiarity with the rules ran counter to the COI’s assertion and was therefore ignored.
Had the program trained a charity they had not had contact with for 5 years, and provided more training to athletes for topics they were well versed on, 7 athletes might have completed the proper forms before working at a charity.
This is what the NCAA is looking to clean up… 7 athletes attending a charity event without completing the forms.
As noted above, their innocence in this matter goes far beyond plausible denial, but the COI’s bias doesn’t stop there.
“B. Contacted the representative directly to inform him that student-athletes could not be employed unless the student-athletes registered their employment;” (page 16 bottom)
The COI carefully chooses it’s verbiage to hide that employers have no reporting responsibility and compliance departments have no responsibility to identify employers – this falls on the student athlete. At no point does the NCAA claim the athletes did not know they were violating program rules. The NCAA again demonstrates its ability to use sophistry to manufacture evidence.
“D. Ensured that its football staff informed the compliance office about the representative's request to employ student-athletes and that it received from the representative completed questionnaires regarding such employment. The person who received these forms in 2006 and 2007 is no longer with the institution and the institution ceased sending these forms in 2009.”(page 17 top)
The coaching staff sends questionnaires to potential employers and post part time job listings for athletes – similar to what you will find posted at groceries, laundry mats, etc. The coaches quit passing this information on to the compliance department in 2009. 1 posting listed the names of athletes who worked for the employer accused of overpayment.
The COI again chooses its verbiage carefully. This isn’t a common compliance department practice since posting part time work isn’t a common practice. Searching out part time employment opportunities for athletes is a good thing. The benefit is mutual - at $15/hour it is cheaper than day temps. The NCAA again displays its ability to use sophistry to manufacture evidence.
COI Summary Rationale – the NCAA found OSU did not notify an employer to ensure he reminded the athletes they had to register their employment with the program (an action not normally done) and the coaches did not pass along job listings not normally collected to the compliance department (obviously not normally done).
Even though OSU compliance didn’t know they employer was still hiring athletes, they were aware the employer had hired athletes 4 years ago, and coaches had the information of athletes on a job posting not normally collected by programs, so the compliance department should have continued to follow up.
Had the compliance department followed up, NCAA violations that didn’t really happen might have been avoided.
The COI sophistry machine went into overdrive on this one.
The FTM wasn’t based on the Vest’s violations (page 10, end of section 2). The FTM wasn’t based on players trading/selling awards (page 5, end of paragraph 1).
This isn’t the BamaTextbook Incident (Institution = University of Alabama, December 10 2008, full report) where athletes were using their scholarships to purchase books for friends and resale. Several common practices would have made it impossible for athletes improperly buy textbooks at the store, making it impossible for the athletes to break this NCAA rule. (page 5) This might be the clearest case of FTM the NCAA will ever face.
This isn’t the USC incident (University of Southern California, June 10 2010, Public Report) where on page 1 the NCAA found USC violations “…struck at the heart of the NCAA's Principle of Amateurism… threatened the efforts of the NCAA and its member institutions to sponsor and support amateur competition… there was relatively little effective monitoring…” and then on page 2 the report continued with the same for 45 pages. USC wasn’t a marginal case whose sanctions were founded in sophistry, they defined “Loss of Institutional Control” as they weren’t even trying to prevent or detect rule violations (page 46-55, Committee Rationale). Unlike what has been presented in the press, it was far more than a couple of players and a couple of athletes.
These 3 items - 1 exaggerated bullshit (cutting off contact with a booster in good standing), 1 minor violation (charity events), and 1 false finding (payment for hours not worked) comprise the full rationale the NCAA used to find for FTM.
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Well NCAA, here’s a box of tissues… …go find another corner to squeeze one off in. |
Making an example is a useless effort if evidence has to be discarded and sophistry used to manufacture evidence to support a finding. The COI’s problem wasn’t deciphering truth from fiction; it was trying to discard facts and manufacture evidence to support their conclusion.
Rather than appearing authoritative the NCAA risks the appearance of shooting blanks. Urban looks on his way to signing a top 10 (perhaps top 5) class, and the loss of 1 bowl season isn’t a big deal.
Why is Gene Smith still here? I can think of no action he did well. If there’s a party OSU needs to sever ties with, it’s Gene Smith. Fortunately there are indications from revealed correspondence Gee will soon send Smith on to his next career as manager of a Men’s Warehouse, because Gene’s career in athletics is over.
