Let’s face it, our favorite college athletic programs sometimes feel a need to cheat. According to
Insider Higher Ed, almost half of all big-time college sports programs have been punished for major violations by the NCAA during the last decade and these days,
even the Ivy League sports programs aren’t immune to major infractions.
That being said, the following programs take the cake for being the most notorious repeat offenders in the game—the blatant cheaters who always seem to have NCAA investigators breathing down their necks. These are the places where the phrase "lack of institutional control" simply becomes redundant:
1. Arizona State — Nine Major Infractions: Most of the Sun Devils' violations have come
as a result of wrongdoing within the baseball program—which has been recognized as one of the best in the nation. With former players like Reggie Jackson and Barry Bonds to call their own, ASU is considered one of the premier programs for producing big name talent but, in recent years, they have been a lot less mindful of how they do business in Tempe and, this past December, they were penalized for major secondary violations, resulting in three years probation and a one-year ban from the NCAA postseason. The NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions cited, amongst other things "the improper recruitment of a player, the improper use of student managers during practices, improper benefits given to players for work not done totaling $5,889.34 and impermissibly using a privately owned athletics training facility located on the ASU campus and not paying for those services, valued at approximately $60,000." The litany of problems
led to the forced resignation of coach Pat Murphy, who led the Sun Devils to four College World Series appearances.
2. SMU — Eight Major Infractions: Holding
the unfortunate distinction of being just one of five programs in NCAA history to suffer the "death penalty",
SMU football is still the poster child for corruption in major college athletics. Its capital offense was maintaining a slush fund to pay players from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, even when the program was already on probation—from 1974 to 1985—it was penalized on five separate occasions. Because SMU was under such intense scrutiny from the NCAA, the powers that be had little choice but to levy the harshest penalty. As a result, the 1987 and 1988 season were canceled, 55 scholarships were stripped away, and the team was permitted to hire just five full-time assistant coaches—instead of the regular nine—and the program was crippled for almost two decades.
3. Auburn — Seven Major Infractions: Seven major infractions for now, anyway, but the Cam Newton situation aside, Auburn has had a difficult time playing by the rules over the years. Its most embarrassing incident occurred in 1991, when
60 Minutes aired recordings of head football coach Pat Dye arranging a loan for a player. The series of incriminating tapes were provided by
former star defensive back Eric Ramsey and unveiled a pay-for-play scheme involving the coaching staff and prominent booster "Corky" Frost. For its wrongdoing, Auburn received a two-year bowl ban, a one-year television ban, and lost 13 scholarships over a four-year period. Dye was replaced by Terry Bowden, who became the first Division 1 coach to go undefeated in his first season.
4. Minnesota — Seven Major Infractions: During his 13-year stint as Minnesota’s head basketball coach,
Clem Haskins oversaw runs to the Elite Eight, Final Four and NIT Championship. Today, however, only the Elite Eight appearance remains in the NCAA record books, as
everything Haskins accomplished from 1993 forward was vacated. Prior to the Golden Gophers’ appearance in the 1999 NCAA tournament, a
former basketball office manager revealed that she had written more than 400 papers for numerous basketball players over several years. Haskins’ contract was bought out over the summer and he later admitted to paying her $3,000 for her work. As the NCAA investigation unfolded, he was accused of paying players, persuading professors to inflate players’ grades and ignoring sexual harassment concerns. The NCAA administered massive sanctions, notably docking five scholarships over three seasons and instituting recruiting limitations. The entire athletic department suffered, as athletic director, associate athletic director, vice president for student development and athletics and academic counselor were all forced to resign due to the scandal.
5. Oklahoma — Seven Major Infractions: Barry Switzer inherited a program on probation—it forfeited nine games from the 1972 season because of violations that resulted from the alteration of players’ transcripts—and left it on probation in 1988. The Sooners garnered the reputation of being an outlaw program in the 1980s. During one rough patch,
a shooting and rape occurred in an athletic dorm, a player attempted to sell drugs to an undercover agent, and a player robbed Switzer’s home. The latter player probably didn’t receive personal checks from Switzer, scalped game tickets, free airline tickets, or a boatload of money from a bidding war during his recruitment. All of that happened, and it resulted in a two-year bowl ban, a one-year live television ban, and recruiting restrictions. More recently, Oklahoma’s basketball program was penalized when former basketball coach Kelvin Sampson, the same guy who later crippled the Indiana basketball program due to unethical recruiting practices,
made 550 illegal calls to 17 different recruits.
6. Texas A&M — Seven Major Infractions: The
Southwest Conference was probably the most corrupt entity in the history of college sports. If you competed in the SWC during the 1980s, and weren’t cheating, you didn’t have a pulse. Not coincidentally, Texas A&M enjoyed quite a bit of success during that decade, winning three consecutive conference titles under
Jackie Sherrill. Sherrill resigned in 1988, after the NCAA discovered that assistant coaches and boosters were providing improper benefits to recruits—one was given a sports car and another’s father was offered medical treatment.
The Aggies were given two years of probation, banned from the postseason for one season and docked 10 scholarships. Additional violations by the basketball program in 1991 and the football program again in 1994—a booster employed and overpaid nine players who didn’t really work—almost caused A&M to suffer the same fate as SMU did in the late 80's.
7. Wichita State — Seven Major Infractions: Programs from smaller conferences are just as capable of skirting the rules as the big boys. Although Wichita State doesn’t have a football program, its baseball and basketball programs have flourished. The baseball program has been one of the most successful in recent history, winning the 1989 College World Series and finishing second in 1982, 1991, and 1993. The basketball program reached the Final Four in 1965, Elite Eight in 1981 and Sweet Sixteen in 2006. Of the program’s seven infractions, perhaps the most disheartening one occurred in 1982, not long after the team reached the Elite Eight.
Violations involving promises of cash and airline tickets resulted in the stripping of two basketball scholarships over two seasons and a ban from both the NCAA tournament and the NIT. At the time the penalties were imposed, Wichita State led the NCAA in major infractions.
8. Wisconsin — Seven Major Infractions: Just months after its basketball program reached the Final Four in 2000, the Wisconsin athletic department was embroiled in controversy. Twenty-six football players were suspended, prior to the season opener, after the
NCAA uncovered that members of the Badgers’ football and basketball teams were given special credit arrangements at a shoe store. A year later, Wisconsin began serving five years of probation—which included scholarship reductions in both football and basketball—for giving recruiting inducements and extra benefits, as well as an overall failure to properly monitor its athletic program. The Badgers have managed to survive the last decade without any other major violations, and the football and basketball programs have continued to enjoy consistent success.
9. Florida State — Seven Major Infractions: Former rival coach Steve Spurrier once referred to FSU as
Free Shoes University, a zinger derived from a 1993 scandal in which nine Florida State players went on an agent-funded shopping spree at Foot Locker. Six years later, during a national championship run, all-American wide receivers, Peter Warrick and Laveranues Coles, were charged with felony grand theft for receiving $412.38 worth of clothes from a Dillard’s cashier for which they only paid $21.40. Warrick was suspended for two games and Coles from thrown off the team. In 2009,
Bobby Bowden was forced to vacate 12 victories because of an academic cheating scandal that also involved the men’s and women’s basketball, baseball, softball and men’s track and field programs–a 2007 men’s track national championship was vacated as well. The penalties ensured Bowden wouldn’t catch Joe Paterno as the FBS’s all-time winningest coach.
10. Memphis — Seven Major Infractions: The good feelings that accompanied Memphis State’s 1985 Final Four run
diminished in the ensuing years as karma, tragedy and bad luck befell various members of the team and coaching staff: head coach Dana Kirk was fired in 1986 after the NCAA uncovered recruiting violations and vacated the 1985 Final Four appearance, he later served a prison term for tax evasion, a crime he committed while he served as the head coach. Star center William Bedford was drafted sixth overall in the 1986 NBA draft, but his career was derailed by drug addiction, and he’s currently serving a 10-year prison sentence. Reserve guard Aaron Price was killed in a carjacking in 1998. Small forward Baskerville Holmes committed a murder-suicide in 1997 and assistant coach Larry Finch suffered a series of strokes that left him debilitated. However, a bit of healing seemed to be on tap in in 2008, when John Calipari had the Tigers positioned to win the national title. Unfortunately, that great run would later be scrapped from the record books as Memphis was
given three years probation by the NCAA for, former star player, Derrick Rose’s fraudulent SAT score and the $1,700 in free travel and lodging provided to his brother. Before penalties were levied, Calipari bolted to Kentucky, which could soon find its way onto this list—the athletic program has six major infractions and the basketball program narrowly escaped the death penalty in 1989.
(This article was reprinted via courtesy of associatesdegree.com).
