MSNBC.com reports that the Oklahoma University football team must forfeit all of its 2005 wins:
Oklahoma must erase its wins from the 2005 season and will lose two scholarships for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years, the NCAA said Wednesday.
The penalties stem from a case involving two players, including the Sooners’ starting quarterback, who were kicked off the team last August for being paid for work they had not performed at a Norman car dealership. The NCAA said Oklahoma was guilty of a “failure to monitor” the employment of the players.
Ordinarily nothing makes a Texas fan like me happier than seeing OU in distress, but I think this case is a pretty raw deal. The NCAA makes literally billions of dollars off of football, but an entire program, its coaches, current players, and the two young men involved are all being hammered over $15,500 in student job payments. Fifteen grand. Coach Bob Stoops makes that much while flossing his teeth.
And why did the two players have to take the under-the-table job? Because none of the billions made by the NCAA goes directly to the student-athletes who perform on the field. They receive scholarships, yes, and that's great, but you can't eat a scholarship.
Stoops, who I simultaneously admire and want to shove out an airlock every time he humiliates Texas in a game, also has the 2005 wins stripped from his record:
[C]oach Bob Stoops’ career record will be amended to reflect the erased wins, dropping it from 86-19 in eight seasons to 78-19.
Talk about a raw deal! He has to give up the wins but keep the losses, that's rough.
OU may suck, but the NCAA blows. The whole system is becoming a laughingstock. Just pay the players already and get rid of this overwrought, unnecessary, hypocritical joke of an enforcement system.
4 comments:
OT: You have been tagged.
I've long been in favor of paying college players a stipend (year round), the amount of which could be monitored by the NCAA. Not because the program makes so much money, but because the school requires them to commit so much of their time to their sport that it is virtually impossible for them to hold a job while also meeting the demands of their classes and their team.
ROTC also requires alot of time commitment from its participants, and has paid them stipends in addition to their scholarships since the dark ages when I was in college. With the TV money, the NCAA could easily work out a share the wealth program to help the small schools pay the same stipend as the big schools.
By the way "a Texas fan like me" ??? ->
here's my circle of trust - O
here's you - .
GEAUX TIGERS
I'm so far outside the circle of trust, from my perspective it looks like a line.
Good point on the ROTC, I think that's exactly right.
Old blog entry, but thought I'd add that the scuttlebutt around town is that the punishment of the football program by the NCAA was so severe because it came right on the heels of the recruiting violations by former basketball coach Calvin Sampson (who conveniently left for Indiana as that came down).
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