To policy wonks, this is a step in the right direction. To NCAA skeptics, no amount of change will ever be accepted as improvement in a broken system.
The Division I Board of Directors today adopted an overhauled enforcement structure that creates additional levels of infractions, hastens the investigation process and ratchets up penalties for the most egregious violations.
The Board’s action culminates a year-long effort from a 13-member group of presidents, athletics directors, commissioners and others assigned after participants at a presidential retreat in August 2011 called for a more stringent and efficient enforcement structure to uphold the integrity of the collegiate model of athletics.
A speedier enforcement process. This has been tried before and resulted in nothing more than a rearranging of milestones along an interminable and most times, indeterminate schedule. Investigations took too long before the first overhaul and took too long afterwards. There are reasons why they take so long, but dragging out probes for more than a year is harmful to everyone involved.
A penalty structure that is intended to be more consistent and, as the NCAA puts it, “that aligns more predictably with the severity of the violations.” This is as close as they’ve ever come to the “mandatory minimums” policy that I have long advocated.
More risk for coaches who break the rules. This is a positive step, but if you’re still punishing schools, student-athletes and fans for the actions of coaches who are fired and/or are long gone by the time the violations are discovered, you’re still doing it wrong. The fines and other punishments should fall on the violators, not the bystanders.
“Emphasizes a culture among head coaches, the compliance community, institutional leadership and conferences to assume a shared responsibility for upholding the values of intercollegiate athletics.” I don’t even know what this is supposed to mean. Such bureaucratic gobbledy-gook sounds good to those who write it, but most people recognize BS when they see it.
We will still have coaches and bad actors weigh the risks vs the rewards of cheating. Maybe fewer see the RRR no longer beneficial and take the foot off the gas. Maybe not. We’ll see.