NCAA places Alabama football program on probation

[pirate4state]

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The NCAA has placed Alabama's football program and 15 other of the school's athletic teams on three years probation for major violations due to misuse of free textbooks.

The NCAA's Committee on Infractions said Thursday the football team must vacate an unspecified number of wins in which any of seven players took part during 2005-2007. The university identified the seven as "intentional wrongdoers."

The NCAA said that 201 student-athletes in the 16 sports, including men's basketball, obtained "impermissible benefits" by using their scholarships to obtain free textbooks for other students. It also found the university guilty of "failure to monitor."

The university was ordered to pay a $43,900 fine.

(This version CORRECTS Alabama will vacate wins not forfeit them)

LINK (http://www.statesman.com/sports/content/shared-gen/ap/Other_Sports/Alabama_NCAA.html)

[Electus Unus]

If that wasn't a football powerhouse would we have seen the death penalty?

[Emerson1]

That seems a little harsh

[95mustang]

Does anyone else see a pattern here?

[Electus Unus]

Originally posted by 95mustang
Does anyone else see a pattern here? That you can get away with anything as long as your prominent?

[Pick6]

Originally posted by Electus Unus
If that wasn't a football powerhouse would we have seen the death penalty?

No, the death penalty will never happen again in college sports.

[sahen]

Originally posted by Electus Unus
If that wasn't a football powerhouse would we have seen the death penalty?

not for this one violation however considering alabama's past and recurring record of cheating it should be harsher...

when baylor got raked over the coals a couple years ago the chair of the infractions committee was an alabama law professor...he told us in no uncertain terms that we should be getting the death penalty so we should basically be thankful that he didnt give it to us (just the half death penalty or whatever)...goes to show u how these schools get away with this, one of the schools that is the most notorious for cheating is the one dishing out the punishments...go figure

[Gobbler Fan]

They should be like USC and fire the basketball Coach :thinking:

[Phil C]

:(

[Phil C]

It wasn't as harsh as it could have been. For some reason Alabama is one of the few big time programs that get hit harder than most. Look at USC getting away with the Bush incident. And Oklahoma with the Big Red payouts. But if any of these had been Texas A&M or SMU the book would have been thrown at them.

[I. B. Watching]

To me, it's crap that certain schools cooperate with the NCAA and get penalized. USC does not cooperate and even though there are lots of things that look crappy (allegedly), may get away with it

[I. B. Watching]

Oklahoma was penalized, and they cooperated

[sahen]

how is this getting hit hard phil? Alabama was doing this while they were still on probation from trying to buy a recuit back a couple years ago...apparantly the moral of this story is if you mess up while on probation they will put you on double, secret probation.....the NCAA is a joke