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NCAA infractions committee chair makes ridiculous remark following Missouri academic scandal
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Honesty may not always be the best policy when you’re dealing with the NCAA, at least that’s what we can take away from NCAA infractions committee chair David Roberts’ interview with reporters on Thursday.
Missouri was handed significant penalties after the NCAA investigating an academic scandal that involved a former tutor completing coursework for 12 student-athletes. Those players were members of the football, baseball and softball teams, resulting in punishments for those programs.
All three programs face a one-year postseason ban, a reduction in scholarships, fines and three years of probation, among other penalties. Even though the university cooperated in the situation, the punishment was still pretty stiff.
Following the sanctions, Roberts spoke with the media to address the situation at Missouri. Many of the questions, as you might imagine, compared the situation at Missouri to the one at North Carolina in 2017.
North Carolina was involved in an academic fraud scheme, in which fake classes were created and administered laxly. Student-athletes were geared toward those classes in order to maintain higher grade point averages and retain eligibility. It was so serious that the university’s accreditation body placed UNC on probation.
Still, no penalties came from the NCAA.
Roberts was asked by Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic if schools would be encouraged not to cooperate or tell the truth in similar situations. His response was shocking.
“You can certainly make that argument,” Roberts responded, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “The converse would be that hopefully more institutions would accept this responsibility as Missouri did. … Nobody likes to receive penalties. But hopefully that would deter future behavior. I don’t want to speculate. But if a school fails to report and conceals and doesn’t tell the truth or did something to otherwise inhibit or hinder the process, then under the mitigating factors the penalties would be more severe than this case.”
While Roberts did acknowledge that a punishment could be worse if a school conceals any scandals, but he also said he didn’t want to “speculate” on any particular situation. Essentially, there isn’t much advantage to cooperating with the NCAA, even in some of these seemingly minor situations.
The NCAA has been under scrutiny for several years for its unusual rulings and inconsistent decisions. It certainly won’t be doing itself any favors with this kind of mindset.
Dustin grew up in the heart of Big Ten country and has been in sports media since 2010. He has been covering Big Ten football since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @SchutteCFB