CECIL HURT: NCAA situation far from over in Memphis, courts January 14, 2004
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Last week’s NCAA letter from Thomas Yeager to University of Alabama President Robert Witt, calling a long-overdue halt to the possibility of institutional penalties arising from Alabama’s 2002 infractions case, was a relatively commendable chapter in the long and unpleasant saga -- but it wasn’t the final chapter, by any means.
There are some good things about the letter. It signals a healthier future relationship between Alabama and the NCAA. It echoes other subtle signals from Indianapolis that the NCAA respects Witt. NCAA President Myles Brand didn’t mention Witt by name in his keynote speech to the NCAA Convention in Nashville this week, but it was obvious that Brand’s glowing references to “strong presidents" taking a stand against coaches run amok was a clear allusion to Witt’s action in the Mike Price situation.
For some, the promise of a more peaceful future is enough. Memphis is over. Since no revelations about the past can result in additional sanctions for Alabama, so the thinking goes, it is now best to move on. That’s not necessarily a bad way to look at things, particularly from an institutional standpoint.
For Witt or Mike Shula, both of whom are unconnected to the events that caused so much turmoil in the Alabama program, the future is the proper place for emphasis. But that doesn’t mean that the past should simply be forgotten, or unexamined, and it won’t be.
Due to pending legal actions in both civil cases and criminal cases, detailed exhumation of the Alabama case will continue -- and, like most exhumations, the results will not be pretty for anyone, including the NCAA.
In particular, the criminal case against Logan Young has opened the NCAA archives to Young’s highly competent defense lawyers. Federal law assures them of access to virtually any materials needed to prepare a defense -- and that includes audiotapes and transcripts of information that many individuals thought would remain “confidential," because the NCAA said that would be the case.
People will say all sorts of things “confidentially." That’s one reason why the NCAA bylaws contain a prohibition on the use of such confidential source testimony, and it’s the main reason that the Infractions Committee’s use of such testimony was short-sighted and stupid, regardless of what “stipulations" someone at Alabama might have made to allow its use. And once Young’s attorneys have access to the “confidential" records, they will soon become part of the civil arena as well, in the pending Ronnie Cottrell/Ivy Williams lawsuit, the Wendell Smith lawsuit and the lawsuits of other disassociated boosters that will be filed before too long.
Intellectually speaking, the Alabama case is a huge, writhing monster that no one has yet wrestled entirely into submission. I’ve analyzed it for years (some might say ad nauseum), and have been as subject to blind spots as anyone, but I do have one opinion that has remained unchanged since Feb. 2, 2002. Regardless of the NCAA’s intent in the Alabama case, the ultimate effect was to sound the death-knell for any sort of co-operation from a school that has allegedly broken the rules.
The past two years have simply reinforced that view. No other school has received penalties remotely approaching those that Alabama received. In the one instance where the Committee on Infractions seemed to come close -- the Michigan basketball case -- the Appeals Committee, in a transparently political decision, blithely reduced the penalties to little more than “time served." Now, courtroom revelations in the coming days and weeks will also show that the NCAA cannot even live up to its “guarantees" of confidentiality. If you don’t think those lessons have been learned elsewhere, just look at Auburn’s aggressive defense in its current basketball case.
In practical terms, Alabama has served its sanctions, or will have served them all when the reduced signing class of 2004 is wrapped up early next month. From that point, nothing can be reduced and, the NCAA has promised, nothing will be added.
But has the last shot been fired? Not by a long shot.
Cecil Hurt is sports editor of The Tuscaloosa News. He can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.tidesports.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040114/NEWS/401140318/1067
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