Bud Withers / Times college football reporter
Oregon's NCAA escape is good news for UW

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most read articles Most e-mailed articles

Even in the languid days of July, when college athletics' most heated activity is offseason summer football workouts, there is ample space for the barking and backbiting of natural rivals.

Aha, say Washington football backers who feel forever persecuted. Look at what Oregon just got away with.

Indeed, a longtime Ducks assistant coach, Gary Campbell, was found to have had multiple impermissible recruiting contacts with junior-college running back recruit J.J. Arrington. At Campbell's behest, Arrington even backdated his letter of intent and forged his father's signature.

Arrington ended up at California, where he was one of about seven backs to rush for 100 yards against the Huskies last November. Oregon got two years' probation, the NCAA equivalent of don't-do-it-again.

UW fanatics take the Oregon case as one more sign that the minions of Nike's Phil Knight routinely get away with murder, while Washington faces hard time for helping infirm octogenarians cross busy streets.

You've got it all wrong, Huskies fans. You ought to be cheered by how the committee on infractions ruled on the Ducks.

Washington is soon to find out how its own misbehaving will be dealt with — the Rick Neuheisel-led gambling activity, the improperly calculated boat rides, the alleged lack of institutional control still contested by the UW.

The Oregon case sustains a trend Washington supporters should embrace. For some reason, NCAA enforcement has been much less heavy-handed over the past decade or so.

It's generally conceded that the period of greatest lawlessness in NCAA football history was the 1970s. In the '70s, 28 schools playing Division 1-A football were found guilty of major violations, and 14 got bowl bans.

In the '90s, on the other hand, 22 schools in 1-A football had major violations, eight of which incurred bowl bans. Of the 14 banished from the postseason in the '70s, 11 got two years or more. There were only three such miscreants in the '90s, one of them Washington.
 
Of the past 20 cases of major rule-breaking, 16 schools got off with no bowl ban.

The television ban, once a staple for those in the penalty box, today is almost unheard of. There hasn't been one in the last decade, covering the past 23 cases of major football infractions in Division I-A.

Perhaps there is a greater respect for the rules. Perhaps the infractions committee is trying to reinforce that greater presidential influence — a phenomenon of the past 15 years or so — is a worthy goal.

Some take a more jaded view. Wayne Duke, longtime former Big Ten Conference commissioner and an original NCAA staffer in 1952, believes the overarching mandate in college athletics is cash.

"When I came into the Big Ten (in 1971), the presidents told me, 'Preserve the Rose Bowl, enforce the rules,' " Duke said recently. "The Tom Hansens and Jim Delanys (Pac-10 and Big Ten commissioners, respectively), I think the presidents are telling them, 'Go make money.' "

It's difficult to make money when the NCAA has you behind bars. So while the tag of lack of institutional control is seen as a dread disease, even it is curable. Of the last seven schools fitting that description for football-related violations, only three were slugged with postseason bans.

Consider a couple of 1996 cases, each resulting in a finding of lack of institutional control:

A Mississippi State assistant offered cash and other recruiting inducements, and a booster provided improper bonuses, cash and loans to prospects. The NCAA also noted a lack of communication and cooperation from the school.

Michigan State rang up a laundry list of violations, ranging from a booster providing cash and travel for a prospect, to an athlete's advisor helping secure grade changes by obtaining fraudulent medical information, to a booster paying airfare, cash, lodging and game tickets for five recruits.

Heavy stuff, right? But neither school was assessed a bowl ban, instead getting a long probationary period and scholarship reductions.

From the NCAA's case history, at least two things seem to inflame the infractions committee most: Unethical conduct — intentional, wanton disregard for the rules — and a failure to cooperate in the investigation.

It's difficult to find either in Washington's case. What the Huskies seem most guilty of is stupidity, in the memos that sanctioned gambling off-campus and in the failure to calculate properly the value of the boat rides.

If cleaning house is a reflection of cooperation, then the Huskies pass the white-glove test. They've cashiered the football coach, the athletic director and the compliance staff, and there will also be a new faculty athletic representative. They've done everything but hang a sign asking the last person out of the Graves Building to turn off the lights.

Nothing is guaranteed, of course. The NCAA considers gambling a capital offense, and it could choose to make an example of the Huskies. Or it could perceive the boat-ride violations as a sign of arrogance. Or it could conclude that Washington hasn't reformed sufficiently after the 1993 offenses.

Still, the gambling — even Neuheisel's thousands — was only incidental to the football program. It wasn't a football violation, per se, and it didn't supply a competitive advantage.

So the guess here is, the Huskies get some scholarship reductions in football, a stern admonition to get the compliance house in order, and a probationary whack across the knuckles with the NCAA's hickory branch.

Boy, is that going to make Oregon fans mad.

Bud Withers: 206-464-8281 or bwithers@seattletimes.com