NCAA Stings GT With Probation

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Recent news from Atlanta has surely caused the pucker factor in Chapel Hill to increase exponentially:

Georgia Tech was fined $100,000 by the NCAA, stripped of its 2009 ACC championship in football and placed on four years of probation on Thursday for failure to cooperate with its investigation into the football and men’s basketball programs.

Those weren’t the only penalties, which stemmed from what the NCAA described as an isolated instance of former standout  wide receiver Demaryius Thomas allegedly receiving $312 in impermissible gifts, and grew to Morgan Burnett allegedly taking gifts and misleading NCAA investigators. Both have denied taking improper benefits.

In addition, more penalties were self-imposed and accepted by the NCAA:

  • Public reprimand and censure.
  • Four years of probation from July 14, 2011 through July 13, 2015. The public report further details the conditions of this probation.
  • A reduction of two men’s basketball recruiting days during the 2011 summer evaluation period (self-imposed by the university).
  • A limit of 10 official visits for men’s basketball for the 2011-12 and 2012-13 academic years.
  • A vacation of all contests won by the football team during the 2009 season after November 24. The ACC said Tech must return the trophy. No champion for the season will be named.

The committee stated in its report, “This case provides a cautionary tale of conduct that member institutions should avoid while under investigation for violations of NCAA rules.”

Given that the denials of improprieties over in Chapel Hill have been nearly non-stop, and only interrupted by weak whimpers of fealty when allegations are demonstrably proven, one has to wonder what college sports’ governing body might have in store for The Flagship when it has its Captain’s Mast later this year at its own NCAA hearing.  Granted, part of the NCAA’s fury is based on Tech’s history as a rules scofflaw — they ran into trouble in 2005 because of problems from back in the 1990’s — but most of it apparently came from the Georgia Tech brain trust’s refusal to come clean when caught over a seemingly minor infraction.

It appeared to the committee that the institution attempted to manipulate the information surrounding potential violations involving (the student-athlete) so there would be enough doubt about its validity to justify the decision not to declare him ineligible,” the NCAA said in its report.

The committee also noted “the university took these actions despite information reported by the student-athlete, another football student-athlete and an assistant football coach regarding the potential agent involvement in preferential treatment benefits.” Tech barred Booker from the university’s training facilities and denied him access to complimentary tickets to athletic contests.

It certainly appears that there are a number of parallels and similarities between the two investigations, so one can fairly assume that the black cloud hanging over Kenan Stadium just got a little bit darker and stormier.

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20 Responses to NCAA Stings GT With Probation

  1. AirWolf 07/15/2011 at 12:02 PM #

    You would ceratinly think the clowns at UNC would have a sense of angst with this report, but also realise that the smug, arrogant, clueless collection dimwitted tranvestites think they are:
    A. above the reach of the NCAA
    B. being singled out because the NCAA is so jealous of their fabulousness
    C. the victims of a media smear.

  2. hammerpack 07/15/2011 at 12:45 PM #

    From my perspective, GT’s infractions pale in comparison to UNX’s gigantic list!

  3. WolftownVA81 07/15/2011 at 12:51 PM #

    Ouch! Can you say weeping and gnashing of teeth. That’s what will be heard from over on the Hill come punishment time.

  4. Wolf74 07/15/2011 at 12:53 PM #

    As an absolute bare minimum, UNC-Cheats penalties should be:

    vacate all wins that ineligible players played in
    payback bowl money in years that ineligible players played
    5 years probation
    15 scholarship reduction for period of 3 years
    3 year bowl ban
    2 year television ban

    that is a bare minimum. The NCAA should come in and do a general investigation of the whole corrupt program.

  5. golf76 07/15/2011 at 1:00 PM #

    Wolf74 — Just logging in to say the same. If the GT ruling is any indication, the sky will fall over Chapel Hole like bombs over Bagdad. Perhaps this “new” staff at the NCAA is going to get serious with enforcement, as well they should!

  6. TruthBKnown Returns 07/15/2011 at 1:05 PM #

    Alpha, nicely done. Except I have to disagree with what you said at the end. I don’t believe there are many parallels and similarities between the two investigations.

    1) Despite what we want to believe, I think the NCAA considers UNX to have been cooperative, unlike Tech. This was a pretty big strike against Tech.

    2) Tech’s issues span multiple athletics programs. Despite what we KNOW in our hearts to be true, only UNX’s football team has allegations against them. I think the multiple athletics program thing was an extra strike against Tech.

    3) UNX has a lot more MAJOR infractions alleged against them than Tech did. There were MANY players involved, and in multiple prongs (academic issues, as well as agent dealings). And there was the coach Blake thing. These are all extra strikes against Carolina.

    I think if you weigh the two, they come pretty close to being equally egregious, but not because they are similar. What UNX lacks in the first two bullet points above, they probably MORE than make up for in the third.

    I’d like to think UNX will be dealt with as harshly, if not MORE harshly than the NCAA dealt with GT. Their scandal seems to be worse than Tech’s, all things considered.

    So I’ll proceed on the assumption that the NCAA will try to deliver an equally harsh punishment, if not worse, on the Holes. To do that, we need to analyze GT’s punishment. IMO, outside of vacating the conference title, GT was slapped on the wrist. I say that because their penalties generally won’t hurt them much GOING FORWARD. They can still play in the postseason. They can still win championships. Sure, their hands are tied a little when it comes to recruiting, but they can still recruit. And these sanctions are probably not going to make a top recruit think twice about going there.

    The only penalty that REALLY hurts is vacating that championship. IMO, that is pretty devastating. If State had won their first title in 30+ years, and we had to vacate it, it would REALLY sting.

    So to deliver a similarly harsh punishment on UNX, the NCAA would have to vacate a championship (not to mention, the other similar penalties). But UNX doesn’t have a title to vacate. And vacating regular season wins just doesn’t matter to most of us, or recruits. So to deliver a similar blow to the Holes, I think they would have to ban them from postseason play for 2-3 years. THAT would harm their recruiting, because what top recruit wants to play for years with no hope of the postseason or a championship of any kind?

    For this reason, I can’t imagine Carolina not being banned from postseason play, as a part of their penalties. IMO, that’s the only thing that would be truly harmful to them. Everything else would just be a slap on the wrist. Unless they had to forfeit 10 scholarships a year for a couple of years or something. That would work, too!

  7. mcpherson.nyc 07/15/2011 at 1:20 PM #

    As a state fan (but ’02 GT grad and proud alum) I wanted to share what I believe to be a fair, heartfelt response from a class-act and former stud lineman on that 09 championship squad.

    http://www.ajc.com/sports/georgia-tech/tech-player-to-ncaa-1018244.html

  8. Wulfpack 07/15/2011 at 1:56 PM #

    ^Quite a read. Stops and really makes you think. This is the ugly side of the NCAA trying to get its act together (good luck). Thanks for sharing.

  9. PackerInRussia 07/15/2011 at 3:18 PM #

    ^^Wow, that guy’s tutor needs to hook up with Marvin Austin.
    Seriously, though, I can understand his point of view. But, just as he pointed out, he’s never going to forget that they won and neither will anyone else. The only down side is to not have it officially recognized any more. I don’t know all the details of the situation, but it sounds like the resulting punishment of taking away the championship was more because of Tech people not cooperating/covering up/whatever. Perhaps if they’d been more forthcoming, they’d still have their championship. I may be wrong about that, though.

  10. packhammer 07/15/2011 at 3:59 PM #

    Wow loss of the Championship seems pretty harsh. Unc should be concerned.

  11. highstick 07/15/2011 at 4:15 PM #

    I don’t see how some of our posters are blowing off “probation” as not being much of a penalty. Maybe in the past, but with the new sheriff in town, I’d bet that GT better keep their nose clean during the probationary period or the penalties will be even more severe.

  12. Tampa-Pack 07/15/2011 at 4:48 PM #

    Damn, definitely looks like UNX is going to have to hand back those Tire Bowl participation trophies….

  13. IamGumbyDammit 07/15/2011 at 5:04 PM #

    Stewie Mandel has a totally different take – that the GaTech penalties were light and that bodes well for UNX. For what it’s worth…

    http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/video/ncaaf_video/2011/07/14/071511.mandel_gt.mov.SportsIllustrated/index.html

  14. tuckerdorm1983 07/15/2011 at 5:52 PM #

    extrapolation. Thats all it takes. Look at the penalty for GA tech and the multiply it by a factor of 10.

  15. IamGumbyDammit 07/15/2011 at 7:09 PM #

    I think Stewie does raise an interesting point – the ones talking “Get tough” are not the ones doling out the candy-ass penalties

  16. GAWolf 07/16/2011 at 6:27 AM #

    Did this nullify Hewitt’s ridiculous buyout?

  17. packhammer 07/16/2011 at 8:53 AM #

    Apparently not GAWolf. A story in the Wahington Post today says not and that GA Tech still owes him over $7 million. That is insane.

  18. packhammer 07/16/2011 at 9:13 AM #

    Now back on topic. The McAdoo suit and the academic fraud it exposes is what is going to nail unc. You can tell from the video that the Ncaa attorney is really angry at the P.I. hearing at having to defend against a totally absurd claim in the face of undeniable cheating. And the unc attorney never fully owned up. Then Thorp admits that earlier nobody ever read the offending paper for gosh sakes. Unless they get really proactive fast, like coming clean on everything and dumping Butch and Baddour, they are going to get slammed. IMO.

  19. TruthBKnown Returns 07/16/2011 at 10:04 AM #

    highstick, probation is a slap on the wrist because it’s only a real problem if the program does something else wrong in that time period. As long as they clean up their acts, they’re fine. Or am I oversimplifying?

    But in Carolina’s case, if they get 3-4 years probation -AND- they keep Butch Davis, there’s no doubt in my mind that they violate their probation. Davis doesn’t run a disciplined program. And the selfish (and great!) players he recruits will surely do something else stupid in the near future (e.g., Coples going to that party and flirting with more violations, if not committing some).

  20. BureauOfMines 07/16/2011 at 4:22 PM #

    Regardless of the outcome for UNC, it sure is odd that the NCAA came down hard and fast on GT and yet this mess with UNC has drug on more than a year. I’d like to think it’s because more bad deeds are coming to light.

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