Now for most schools when they cheat it's a minor infraction. and sometimes schools don't even cheat on purpose. What I have found in my 20 plus years of journalism and covering college sports is that everyone "bends" the rules it's just how far and how long until they "break".
Check out this story about the University of Georgia. Even a butt dial is a violation according to the NCAA. There's a reason the NCAA is the butt of a lot of jokes.
Keep in mind that cheating doesn't always lead to probation. NCAA has a total of 47 schools in all divisions on probation in the last two year period. That number is sure to grow with Ohio State and Tennessee. These are what we call the super cheaters.
There's a good discussion in the Cedar Rapids Gazette about cheating? I think if we started scratching the surface we would find a lot secrets.
More:
After getting several emails about this, I feel I need to clarify my opinion. I think all schools cheat based on what the "NCAA" rule book says. I don't however believe they are all cheaters. Secondary violations like that of Iowa and it's video tape mishap on www.gohawks.com or the Georgia butt dial violation is not intentional. My point is the NCAA blows and it's become more and more difficult for even the schools with compliance officers to police what is going on.
Travis,
ReplyDeleteMy answer to that question is NO! I count cheating as intentional, and cheaters need to be dealt with swiftly and fairly to protect the integrity of the system. However, I would say 99% of all secondary violations are purely accidental or unintentional. Those "accidents" occur at almost every NCAA school in the country, and schools that don't report any violations either aren't paying attention, or they are ignoring them, and at that point it IS cheating! People that intentionally "bend" the rules are cheating too, I've encountered my fair share of them, and have dealt with them. Those that do "bend" the rules almost always get caught eventually. One final point, the NCAA rules are created by the member schools, not the staff, and the NCAA staff applies those rules at the behest of the members.
Just my two cents worth Travis!
Kelly J Higgins