NCAA Should Bring Back Death Penalty

By Caroline Creeden

Death to Ohio State.

Death to Tennessee

Death to Connecticut

Death to Kentucky

Death to Auburn

Death to all

The NCAA needs to bring back the death penalty and threaten to use it against any school
or coach whom puts winning over the rules. It is the only way to start the long process of
cleaning up college athletics.

Over the NCAA’s 106 years of existence, the death penalty has only been used five
times, three of those times against a Division I program. It has not been used against a
major program since SMU football in the late 1980’s.

By definition on the NCAA website, “the ‘death penalty’ is a phrase used by media to
describe the most serious NCAA penalties possible. It is not a formal NCAA term. It
applies only to repeat violators and can include eliminating the involved sport for at least
one year, the elimination of athletics aid in that sport for two years and the school
relinquishing its Association voting privileges for a four-year period. A school is a repeat
violator if a second major violation occurs within five years of the start date of the
penalty from the first case. The cases do not have to be in the same sport.”

The death penalty is a serious threat and when used on a program can permanently kill
the sport at the school. The NCAA does not use it lightly and without serious reason.
When the SMU football program received the death penalty after numerous violation
over a decade span the NCAA vowed to never use it again. They have not enacted it
against a Division I program. In the 2000’s Division II Morehead State and Division III
MacMurray College were given the death penalty despite both having violations for the
first time.

Former University of Florida President John V. Lombardi said in 2002: "SMU taught the
committee that the death penalty is too much like the nuclear bomb. It's like what
happened after we dropped the (atom) bomb in World War II. The results were so
catastrophic that now we'll do anything to avoid dropping another one.”

The NCAA has not placed a Division I program the death penalty partly because of
media backlash and the severe damage it costs. However, major programs are given
lesser penalties than their Division II and III counterparts because major programs make
money for the NCAA. The men’s basketball tournament makes 95% of the NCAA
revenues yearly; college football makes nothing for the NCAA as the conference makes
all the money. The NCAA will not put a high profile and successful program, such as
Kentucky, on violations because of the money the team makes for the NCAA.
This is clearly wrong. If the NCAA is serious about cleaning up college athletics, it needs
to resurrect the death penalty and create fear. Without fear, cheating in college athletics
will continue as the NCAA allows it and does not always punish those who are clearly
guilty. The NCAA had replaced the electric chair with a time out chair.

If the NCAA has to have the federal government involved, so be it. It was President
Teddy Roosevelt who created the NCAA in the first place. If the NCAA does not have
the power to supine, have the federal government do it. Surely, college administrators,
coaches, players and boosters will not lie when they face jail time.

Cheating as especially been prominent this year. Auburn and Oregon played for the
national championship in football and both are being investigated by the NCAA for
violating the rules. Should I be surprised? The University of Connecticut and the
University Of Kentucky played each other in the Final Four and the NCAA is
investigating both. Their coaches do not hold the cleanest records either, considered the
‘dirtiest’ coaches in college basketball. If UCONN wins, than the NCAA will have two
possible championships vacated because of cheating. Am I surprised? No.

The NCAA cannot investigate violations partly because of their inability to do so because
of rules set on them and partly because they do not want to. It was HBO that reported on
the Auburn players receiving payments when they played at the University. It was
reporters from Yahoo that reported on Jim Tressel failing to alert the NCAA on
violations. And yet Tressel keeps his job.

Tennessee men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl was allowed to continue coaching the
Vols despite being investigated for lying to the NCAA and recruiting violations. He was
only fired after the Vols lost by 30 points in the NCAA tournament. Had he been in the
Final Four this weekend, Tennessee would be offering Pearl a contract extension. And
the NCAA, they’re too busy licking their wounds.

Kentucky men’s basketball head coach, John Calipari, found the perfect program in
Kentucky. Cheat. Break rules. Don’t care. And get away with it. Capirari put the
University of Massachusetts under NCAA violations and their Final Four vacated.
Calipari went to the NBA, failed and went to coach the University of Memphis. He took
them to a Final Four, which was vacated a year later for violating the rules. Calipari
abandoned Memphis and went to Kentucky before the NCAA brought down the
punishments on Memphis. He was not punished for his crimes. Never has been.

Despite a love-fest over Calipari that sport experts call a “great” coach, one former coach
and Hall-of Famer took offense to Calapari. "We've gotten into this situation where
integrity is really lacking and that's why I'm glad I'm not coaching," said college
basketball icon Bob Knight. "You see we've got a coach at Kentucky who put two
schools on probation and he's still coaching. I really don't understand that." Coach Knight
ran the cleanest program when he was coaching, and never got in trouble for breaking the
rules.

There is no fear in college athletics. The NCAA will only slap their diapers and allow
them to continue. The NCAA needs to revive the death penalty. Socrates once said:
"Death may be the greatest of all human blessings."

If faced with death, the cheating in college athletics will slowly die.

It will end, in sudden death.