Miami vice
By Tom Wolfe | August 25, 2011
Death penalty: The words stir up strong feelings and controversy.
Is it cruel and unusual? Is it a deterrent to potential future offenders? Is it deserved for certain egregious offenses? Is it administered fairly?
Such is the current conversation across the country, as the latest college football scandal is debated – this time involving the University of Miami.
Just what did Miami do? According to reports, dozens of past and former Hurricane players spent a stretch from 2002 to 2010 receiving illegal gifts from a convicted Ponzi schemer.
If you believe what you read, this Miami booster spent millions on Miami players – from sex parties on his yacht and expensive jewelry to an abortion for a stripper impregnated by a Hurricane player.
The university’s president has suggested that if the allegations are true, perhaps the death penalty is appropriate. Worse yet for Miami, NCAA President Mark Emmert has said that if the allegations are true, the death penalty would be “on the table.”
What is the death penalty, as enforced by the NCAA?
NCAA bylaws give it the authority to shut down a college sports program if its infractions committee determines a school has committed significant violations of NCAA rules, particularly in situations involving repeated violations.
Effectively killing a college’s sports program, this NCAA action is appropriately coined “the death penalty.”
Such was the case in 1987, when the Southern Methodist University football program was terminated by the NCAA for one year (SMU voluntarily extended the penalty for an additional year). The death penalty obliterated SMU’s football program on the national scene.
Do the situations at SMU and Miami compare?
The SMU head coach knew what was going on, as did assistants and the administration. The school out-recruited rivals with truckloads of money paid to players confirmed with binding contracts.
After being caught – while the school was assuring the NCAA that players were no longer being paid – SMU’s board of governors decided the school must honor previous commitments to players. Under a secret plan adopted by the board, the school would phase out the payments once all players receiving them had graduated.
Cheating in college sports, particularly football, is rampant. Could Miami’s transgressions be so over-the-top that the NCAA feels the need to lower the boom? Does it feel the need to make an example out of Miami, particularly in light of recent scandals involving other schools?
Though it’s unlikely Inner Circle had “The U” in mind when it wrote, “Bad boys, bad boys/ A watcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do/When they come for you” – you never know.
Tom Wolfe is a civil litigator who serves as president and managing partner of Phillips Murrah P.C. in Oklahoma City.