College Sports

The NCAA has a deadly weapon at it’s side, the so-called “Death Penalty.” In it’s truest sense, it has only been used once, but that was enough to throw a once-storied, top flight football program into a spiral that it has yet to climb out of, nearly 20 years later.

Under the NCAA’s current criteria, the “death penalty” is applied under the repeat violator rule. Enacted in 1985, the rule states that a member institution that has a second major violation within five years of being placed on probation (whether in the same sport or a different sport), can be barred from competing in the sport involved in the second violation for either one or two seasons.

Prior to 1985, the NCAA had used the death penalty once. In October of 1951, three UK basketball players (Alex Groza, Ralph Beard and Dale Barnstable) were arrested and charged with taking money from gamblers to shave points during the 1948-49 season, and senior center Bill Spivey was charged with perjury for refusing to testify against his teammates. That same season, UK won the national title. Groza, Beard and Barnstable all plead guilty to taking $1500 in exchange for shaving points in an NIT game against Loyola-Chicago. The Cats lost the game 67-56, despite being a 10 point favorite. Kentucky barred Spivey from playing the 1952-1953 season (the other players were no longer with the program), and the SEC barred UK from conference play for that season. Other NCAA member schools were pressured into not scheduling the Cats by Walter Byers, the NCAA’s executive director, and the UK season was over before it started.

UK rebounded (no pun intended) almost immediately following their return to the hardwood and was back in the NCAA tournament two years later. But there was personal fallout for the former players. The NBA banned all the players involved from the league for life. Two of the players, Groza and Beard, were stars with the Indianapolis Olympians of the NBA, and their dismissal is widely believed to have led to the team folding at the end of the season (1952-1953).

But the situation most-cited by sports historians is the Southern Methodist death penalty case. The SMU football program was, at the time, the most punished in NCAA history. It was also one of the most successful (crime evidently does pay, at least to a point). The NCAA, citing “the need to eliminate a program that was built on a legacy of wrongdoing, deceit and rule violations,” took the unprecedented step of barring a school from football for an entire season (1987). This was not a “full” death penalty ruling, which would have disbanded the program for two years. However, the NCAA restricted SMU to seven games in 1988, none of which could be home games (the University decided to cancel all games for that season, as well). There were additional limits to scholarships, assistant coaching positions, and television and post-season appearances All recruits and players were allowed to transfer with no penalty, and most did, leaving head coach Forrest Gregg with a shell for a team.

Prior to the ruling, the Mustangs had one national championship, one Heisman Trophy winner (Doak Walker) and 10 Southwest Conference titles. Since 1989 SMU has had a mark of 58-153-3 and defeated only two ranked teams.

And on a larger scale, the Southwest Conference disbanded in 1996, following years of probation at most of it’s member schools. The SMU debacle was most likely the final straw, as teams on probation were not allowed to have games televised, and the lost revenue dwindled.

Since the SMU case, the NCAA has be loathe to implement the death penatly, although it has had opportunity. The penalty was actually recommended for the University of Kentucky’s men’s basketball program in the late 1980’s (will they never learn?). The Cats only dodged the bullet because the University cooperated fully with the investigation. Head coach Eddie Sutton was forced to resign (yet showed up at Oklahoma State just a few years later, none the worse for wear). UK received three years probation, a two year ban from the NCAA Tournament (1990 and 1991), and was stripped of two wins in the 1988 tournament.

Most recently, Alabama had it’s neck in the NCAA’s hangman’s noose, before escaping. In 2002, numerous accusations were levied against the Tide, with the worst being that boosters were involved with paying players and recruits. Thomas Yeager, infractions committee chairman for the NCAA, called the allegations “some of the worst, most serious that have ever occurred.” The final settlement was five years probation, a two year bowl ban and the loss of 24 scholarships. Bama seems to have bounced back after a few years on the coaching carousel, hiring Nick Saban, college football’s version of Larry Brown’s road show.

Baylor’s basketball team in 2003, under coach Dave Bliss, engaged in serious violations that could have led to the death penalty, but because the University acted swiftly once allegations were made, the NCAA gave them what has been called a “half-season death penalty,” barring the school from playing any non-conference games.

No, I don’t think the NCAA will ever punish a school quite as severely as SMU… too much is at risk now that many D-I schools depend on the television dollars to fund other programs, most notably women’s athletics. I don’t believe that the NCAA thought the SMU program would be quite so crippled that 20 years later it is still playing catch-up.

But I also think (hope?) that the ruling all those years ago perhaps curtailed some of the rampant cheating. Oh yes, it still exists! But the 1980’s were a pretty rogue time, particularly in the Southwest Conference. SMU’s administration knew what was going on and chose to ignore it. Since that time, university presidents have become much more involved, and a lot less willing, to watch their cash cows go down in flames.