How come more schools aren't getting into trouble with the NCAA?

More schools don't get in trouble for the same reason a relatively small percentage of all U.S. white collar crimes don't get prosecuted -- not enough cops or prosecutors to investigage all the crimes being committed.
And they're not really crimes in many cases, just rules violations. The NCAA has too many rules, way too many rules. If it tightened up the rulebook to focus on serious issues, as it sees them, not me, more schools would get caught.
Investigative pieces on college sports are not easy to do, as I know from experience. It takes top-notch work by reporters and editors and a major commitment of time and money from media outlets. You can't expect the media to be watchdogs of a sport as a part-time job, but that's what it is. Imagine if the guy covering, say, the Department of Agriculture as a beat for the Post had to spend 90 percent of his time writing about how vegetables are good for you. That's kind of what beat writers do, and it limits the digging they can do into corrupt practices.

 

When I was in college a SI writer who I went to see speak listed off about 15 schools the magazine had helped put on probation during the 1980s and early 1990s.

How much of that is true and how much is false bravado, I really don't know, but I remember reading those stories about Boston College point shaving and the SMU deal and Oklahoma during the Switzer days and the Kentucky hoops player who had money sent to him.

You don't see those stories anymore.

 

Maybe because more operators are now more subtle than the run-of-the-mill SEC gangsters.

 

The cheating would end if colleges did right and pay a stipend or something to these athletes. The schools make bundles of money off these kids. Supposedly, the tradeoff is an education but it's no secret that many don't get their degrees.

 

There may be fewer of those stories, but blame ain't only on journalists. Seems like the NCAA has also grown more reluctant to take action even when journalists HAVE done their investigative legwork for them. Pete Thamel did outstanding work exposing academic fraud and a pile of sordidness related to Eric Bledsoe's eligibility, yet the NCAA (and Alabama Athletic Association) declined to do anything about it. The evidence in the Cam Newton case seems to be an explicit violation, yet the NCAA found a convoluted rationale to keep him on the field. Did the NCAA ever even acknowledge those Sun-Times articles this summer about the father of that incoming UK recruit (Davis?) allegedly shopping his son for a six-figure price tag?

And when the NCAA does crack the whip nowadays, it often seems to be for relatively silly violations like too many phone calls (Sampson) or practicing too long (RichRod). They'd prefer to cover their eyes and ears when it comes to the more serious cheating we all know is going on.

 

Good point, Yank. The NCAA does have something in common with them, in that it self-enforces to keep the government out of its hair. (I believe the NCAA was formed because Teddy Roosevelt said that if colleges didn't do something about problems such as football players dying in mass quantities on the field, he would take care of the problem.)

As for the role of investigative journalism, to me what it does is give the NCAA a heads-up and some legwork on problems (to MichaelGee's point), and it forces the NCAA and its membership to Do Something About It. After all, as part of the NCAA's commitment to shamateurism, if the lamestream media (man, talking like Sarah Palin is fun!) points out where it's not happening, the NCAA and its members are duty-bound to take some action, or else its cover is completely blown.

Also to Michael Gee's point, the reason you don't see more college investigative pieces is the same reason you don't see more business or government investigate pieces -- beyond the political problems, it's time and money spent that a lot of newspapers don't have, or don't want to spend.

 

Again, the NCAA is not going to take any actions its membership doesn't want. So if the membership demanded the NCAA focus on Bledsoe and Davis' cases, it would.

There is also the difference between what a journalist reports, and what would stand up in court. Because you know and I know that the schools have their own lawyers they would be more than happy to sic on the NCAA if it unilaterally imposed sanctions. Anyway, the too-many-phone-calls and too-much-practice-time violations are fairly easy to prove. Unless you have written documentation of money changing hands or grades being altered, that stuff gets trickier.

Again, the NCAA is not going to crack the whip unless its members demand it. There is no law saying athletes can't be paid, or that there have to be any eligibility requirements whatsoever.

 

I get mad when I hear of people getting nailed for ticky-tack violations when I know there are tons of athletes who are getting cash, cars and more to come to schools.

I don't want to see a guy called for traveling when Rudy Tomjanovich is getting punched in the face.

 

Well, reporting other schools for infractions seems limited to the SEC these days. The NCAA acts when it's told it has to.

A long time ago, the NCAA would find out which schools it had to investigate by reading newspapers and magazines. It's safe to say that's not the case anymore.

 

To speak to several of the points raised on this thread, the 30 for 30 documentary had a former NCAA investigator stating that the organization first began looking at SMU when member schools complained to it, not because of media stories.
Many an organization, legal and illegal, has come to grief when members start ratting each other out. That's what makes the Newton story so big, at least to me. What goes around comes around, and who's to say Auburn won't be the next school to point a finger at a rival. Do they have a rival? In-state maybe?

 

If Auburn is smart (it's not) it will never point a finger at another program because while LSU, Bama and Florida may be cheating as much if not more than Auburn, it's probably a safe bet they're better at it than Auburn is.

 

SMU's problems began when kids from outside of Texas began coming to Dallas. That's when a lot of the snitching began.