It's ironic, in an Alanis Morissette sort of way, that a school that didn't even have an infractions case before SMU had been given the death penalty could rank #1 on a Ten Dirtiest Programs list. When the Red Raiders decided to start cheating, though, they made a big splash. The infractions case from 1987 was just a warm-up for the wide-ranging infractions case of 1998, the single worst infraction that I encountered.
The Committee on Infractions cited Texas Tech for unethical conduct, academic fraud, failure to monitor, and lack of institutional control. Tech was one of only two teams to get cited for all four during entire period, and they managed it in one infraction. While the cases were different, the penalties were quite similar to Kentucky's 2002 case. The big difference here, and the reason Texas Tech takes the top spot while the Wildcats sit down at #5, is simple: it wasn't Tech's only violation.Sorry, No Photos
The Sooners are no strangers to the NCAA's Committee on Infractions. With six football cases in their file, it's no shock to find them near the top of this list. That said, prior to Bomar-gate Oklahoma had kept its nose clean for almost 20 years. Almost.
In incidents contained in the 1988 case report were touched off when the NCAA's Project Intercept picked up on some suspicious Sooner recruiting practices. Project Intercept was a program which interviewed top prospects in basketball and football, trying to catch violations of NCAA recruiting rules. For all intents and purposes, it was a fishing expedition... and during their fishing in 1985, the NCAA hooked a whopper.Sorry, No Photos
In the early 80s Joe Paterno quipped that he wouldn't retire because it would leave football in the hands of "the Jackie Sherrills and the Barry Switzers." This irritated Sherrill, but the shoe seemed to fit. On Sherrill's watch both Texas A&M and Mississippi state were found to have "lack of institutional control". A few years later RC Slocum, who was an assistant for the Aggies under Sherrill, saw his Aggies get cited by the NCAA for lack of control, making the Aggies the first team on our count-down to amass two such violations.
That said, Texas A&M's appearance in the countdown can likely be attributed to a culture of corruption in College Station that seemed to taper off after the 1988 penalties. Nobody told the boosters about it, though, as they continued to keep the Aggies in hot water almost continually through 1994.Sorry, No Photos
One internal sanity check for any "dirtiest programs" list that relies on NCAA infractions, and the Association's appraisal of their severity, is that Alabama needs to be near the top of the list or something is amiss. The blogger in me is happy to report that I have not failed on that score. The alumnus in me, on the other hand, is disappointed that the facts are what they are, and I'm not about to pretend that I'm not.
The infractions cases at issue here involve impermissible loans, an athlete prematurely signing with an agent, and large cash payments from Alabama boosters to prospective athletes and high school coaches. The aftermath involved the federal prosecution of one of the boosters and a civil suit that had Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer hiding out in Tennessee for SEC Media Days to avoid a subpoena. All very exciting stuff.Sorry, No Photos
When it comes to the cheating-to-wins ratio, few teams do as poorly as the Kentucky Wildcats. From the beginning of the 1998 season to the end of the 2001 season (the time during and immediately after the cheating in the report) the Cats were 17-29, and it was during the'98-'99 season that the cheating started, so the real record that their cheating can claim is more like 10-24. Not so impressive.
Despite the impotence of Kentucky's shenanigans, they still amount to some of the most blatant violations of the modern era, and that's just from reading the official NCAA Report and ignoring the evidence that some higher-ups in the Athletic Department threw the recruiting coordinator under the bus to avoid a more revealing inquiry by the NCAA. Kentucky appears here at number five on the strength of one case, the second worst of the modern era, by my score card. (Update: I had originally stated that this was the "single worst" violation, which was incorrect. another violation actually eclipses this one by .25 points)Sorry, No Photos
I'm sorry, who? How is that that UC Berkeley ends up rounding out the first half of the ten dirtiest programs of the modern era? I have to admit that I was a little surprised when the spreadsheet told me that the Golden Bears were the sixth dirtiest program since the SMU death penalty, but that's how the numbers worked out, so I dove in.
What I found was a little surprising. The two cases considered for this ranking both involved academic fraud and unethical conduct with the most recent of them earning Cal the "lack of institutional control" ding. The Golden Bears were actually saved from a much higher ranking by some unusually soft punishments in their 1988 case.Sorry, No Photos
What's the most you've ever won in your March Madness office pool? Fifty bucks? A few hundred? As a result of his participation in pools and auctions from 2000-2004, former Washington coach Rick Neuheisel walked away with a payday topping $4 million. More on that in a moment.
Washington is the first of the programs we've covered to get hit with two violations in the last 20 years and having read the circumstances surrounding both violations, I have to say that these might be two of the most trumped-up violations we run across. The NCAA Committee on Infractions filed reports in 1994 and 2004 on the Huskies. The 1994 violations involved improper benefits and the 2004 report detailed Neuheisel's love of college basketball.Sorry, No Photos
Mike Freeman, the columnist whose article served as the inspiration for this series, amazed on-lookers when he did what few realized was possible: simultaneously pissing off both Alabama and Auburn fans. For its part, the Loveliest Villiage on the Plains had its hackles raised by a number two ranking in Freeman's poll. It turns out that while they're no angels, the Auburn Tigers are not quite #2 material.
It is unusual that infractions in diverse sports can be blamed on the head football coach, but in this case the NCAA is very clear in its 1993 report that those violations and the ones covered by the 1991 report (which included only the men's basketball and tennis programs and, therefore, are not being scored here) fell on the shoulders of Pat Dye who served as both head coach and Athletics Director from 1981 to 1992.Sorry, No Photos
Here at number nine the Big XII makes its first appearance on the list, but it will probably not be the last. (Did you see that? I like to call it 'foreshadowing'.) The Cowboys are another team for whom years of wanton violations are rolled up into one massive finding of major infractions.
The Reading between the lines on the NCAA's report, you get the distinct impression that the Committee on Infractions was not at all impressed by Jimmy Johnson, the head football coach at OSU for the vast majority (if not all of) these violations. That report also started with words that have a tendency to induce profane language in many fans: "This infractions case began . . . when anonymous and confidential sources telephoned the NCAA enforcement staff." Sorry, No Photos
There was an awful lot going on in Stillwater, though, as evidenced by the sheer number of violations (40) and the fact that it took almost five years from that anonymous call until the Committee's report was published.
We start our trip through the dirtiest programs of the modern era of infractions with a mild surprise: how did The U -- a program with a real, national reputation for recruiting thugs and miscreants -- end up so far down the list?
The answer is surprisingly simple: while Hurricane players might have been unable to avoid embarrassing Miami and its fans, the university itself has stayed mostly off of the NCAA's radar, with only one major infraction since 1987. What sets Miami apart from the dozens of other schools with a single violation in the last two decades was the severity of it. The Hurricanes' trip before the Committee on Infractions in 1995 involved years of ill-gotten financial aid and what the NCAA refers to as "pay for play".Sorry, No Photos
