Talk:Death penalty (NCAA)

Correction Needed

SMU and Kentucky are not the only programs to receive the death penalty.

In 1973, the University of Southwestern Louisiana's (now Louisiana-Lafayette) men's basketball program received the death penalty from the NCAA for two years.

Here is some info in that regard:

http://www.athleticnetwork.net/site70.php

Cdebaillon (talk) 18:14, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Kentucky Basketball, 1952-53

In addition, senior center Bill Spivey was charged with perjury for refusing to testify against his teammates.

I am puzzled by this statement. Perjury is lying under oath. How can someone be charged with perjury for refusing to testify? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Clubiguana (talk • contribs) 20:12, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

You can't. If he took the Fifth, they couldn't charge him with anything unless he was granted immunity. In which case refusing to testify still wouldn't be perjury. It would be obstruction of justice. 75.76.213.106 (talk) 19:31, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

To state that this was a death penalty is very misleading as kentucky returned all eligible players and the same coach..where as the death penalty is a complete dismantling of the program..after the suspension there was no penalties or ineligible players.. in fact the ncaa cleared 3 of the UK players to play the season in 54 and then retracted their eligibility when they went undefeated and would not allow them to play in the post season tourney..after having allowed other post graduates to play..so by the very definition of the death penalty this does not fit the mold. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.18.65.10 (talk) 02:47, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

That's not necessarily so. Kentucky chose to retain its players and coach. The NCAA doesn't dismantle programs, it just says that they can't play. SMU Football in the mid 1980's decided to dismantle its own program in response to the sanctions placed on it. The NCAA can't force universities to do anything with their students or coaches. It can, however, decide that they cannot play a sport for a given time. The Kentucky team decided, rather than disbanding, to sit out the year sanction and return after it expired. It was the same penalty, just that each university responded in different manners. --Jayron32 02:53, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Fair Warning: Imminent reversion of "Notable Violations" Section

This entire section is a POV, OT travesty. Not a single WP:RS is cited in support of the contention that ANY of these four schools "almost" received the NCAA death penalty. All that is here is speculation in view of the possibility that these schools might have. One source is misapplied - here is a direct quotation from one of the articles used to support the Alabama contention:

Instead of punishing the university, the NCAA's Committee on Infractions praised Alabama for its handling of the case.'The university has really done everything we expect an institution to do when they're investigating violations of NCAA rules,' said infractions committee chairman David Swank, adding that 'he couldn't recall a similar case where a school received no sanctions'. 'They reported it, they investigated it, and they took corrective actions.'

This essentially refutes the contention that Alabama "escaped" the death penalty.

The section on USC is worse - all innuendo, supposition, and inference based on the facts as presented - a classic example of WP:OR. The Baylor section offers not a single source in support.

Additionally - what makes these probations more "notable" and nearer the death penalty than dozens of others? Again - it smacks of WP:OR, as if editors merely added a few cases with which they were vaguely familiar. Where is the evidence that this list is exhaustive? Why were these schools chosen?

The entire section is unencyclopedic POV. Unless WP:RS appear in two days, I will revert the section, which is potentially libelous as it stands.

FWIW - I have no personal stake in this whatsoever beyond a desire for accuracy. As my User page indicates, I am a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and have no particular affinity for any of these schools beyond the respect that one accords a rival. But this section is the very incarnation of all that a Wikipedia article should not be and too often is. Sensei48 (talk) 04:18, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed with Sensei48 (talk) on all counts, but I was waiting to hear feedback from other users. Obamafan70 (talk) 13:24, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi Obamafan! Glad you agree - no one has rushed to the defense of this section, so for the moment I will as indicated revert it. If editors want to bring back information on these episodes that

a) is properly, objectively, and accurately sourced - which these are not -

b) explain with sourcing why these cases are more notable than or closer to receiving the death penalty than dozens of other infraction cases, and

c) eschew the inferential and gossipy style or writing here present,

then maybe a section like this can remain in the article. I doubt it though - establishing these four cases as objectively more significant than dozens of others is virtually impossible. They seem concocted from animus for the universities mentioned. Sensei48 (talk) 09:23, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed again on all counts; this merits a barnstar. I will see what seems appropriate. Obamafan70 (talk) 13:09, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Alabama, USC et al. Round 2

I thought you'd like to know that content you previously deleted as original research has been recently restored to this article. Oore (talk) 14:14, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up! It's on my watchlist but your note is an immediate attention grabber. regardsSensei48 (talk) 16:26, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Any chance what can be sourced in that section can be restored? I know that at the very least the Kentucky, Alabama and Baylor sections can be sourced--I frequently read the NCAA infraction reports to source related articles. Blueboy96 13:41, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Please also discuss this on the talk page of the article. Obamafan70 (talk) 14:02, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Will do, OBF...I'll reply here and then move the whole section to the death penalty Talk page.

Hi Blue - I think you deserve a commendation for doing this the right way, which is opening a dialogue rather than starting an edit war. Now, let me try to respond without repeating. I raised most of the relevant objections in the "fair warning" section on the death penalty Talk page, but perhaps we can look at those in a different way. Consider first the "lede" for the article:

The death penalty refers to the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) power to ban United States academic institutions from competing in certain sports...It has been implemented only five times...

Those are factual statements that can be sourced, which they are partially in the article.

Now let's look at the texts of the reverted sections, again from the ledes:

Due to the nature of the violations and the previous 1988 sanctions, the NCAA Committee on Infractions nearly imposed the "death penalty" on Kentucky, but decided against it after the school cooperated fully with the investigation.

Baylor was eligible for the "death penalty" since their tennis program had been put under probation in 2000. However, the committee decided not to issue the death penalty

The Alabama and USC sections are similarly inferential - and by its very definition, inference is original research, or WP:OR, which cannot be included in an article on Wikipedia. This extends especially to the USA Today "source" used for the Alabama section. The quotation from Thomas Yeager implies the possibility of the death penalty and includes a further implied threat - but then in violation of good journalistic practice (and USA Today would not be on anyone's list of credible WP:RS), writer Zenor draws his own conclusions and tries to pass them off as fact - "The governing body said it considered giving the Crimson Tide the most severe punishment — the death penalty ..." But that is NOT what the governing body said - the penalties as imposed are what the governing body said. Zenor is drawing a conclusion from what he thinks Yeager is implying - then tries to generalize it as "the governing body." Shoddy, shoddy journalism. Further, and as indicated in the "fair warning" section...Zenor actually perverts his own quotations in the AP article from him. The official spokesperson for the NCAA sanctions committee states in the article that " The university has really done everything we expect an institution to do when they're investigating violations of NCAA rules, said infractions committee chairman David Swank, adding that he couldn't recall a similar case where a school received no sanctions. They reported it, they investigated it, and they took corrective actions." So in this section which purports that Alabama "almost" received the death penalty, the head of the infractions committee declares the opposite - and Alabama received no externally-imposed institutional sanctions at all.

The USC section sources the facts about the Bush case and the sanctions imposed but does not source the allegation that this "almost" resulted in the death penalty - because it cannot do so. The section presents a few supported statements but then uses SC's earlier problems and subsequent staffing changes in an attempt to build a case that this was a "near death" situation. But that - 'building a case' -is WP:OR. Garrett's and Carroll's resignations may be related in part to the Bush/Mayo incidents, but to allege or imply that the former were caused by the latter is to slip into the logical fallacy of "post hoc ergo propter hoc" as well as violating Wiki WP:OR policy. (There were FWIW multiple other issues leading to both men's departures).

OK - so these elements of the section cannot be included as presented. So how could they be re-introduced without violating WP:OR and leaving Wikipedia open to a potential libel suit from the universities whose reputations such a section besmirches? There is only one way: You would need a direct, official quotation from the NCAA governing committee on sanctions that the death penalty was considered for each of these institutions in these specific cases. But the deliberations of this committee are (for legal reasons cited) secret and confidential, and the committee's only official statements are those that detail the actual sanctions imposed - which is a big part of the reason that Yeager in the Alabama note quoted above uses oblique references to the death penalty to Zenor but never comes out and states what Zenor and the Wiki editor infer.

Further, and in reference to the "fair warning" section above - even if you can meet this criterion of unambiguous and official statements from the NCAA, you still have the question of establishing that these appended incidents are the only "near death" cases - because an encyclopedia needs to be encyclopedic. Take a look here, for example: [1] - why isn't SE Missouri State in the article? And that's a relatively current situation. What about the 1950s,60s,70s,80s,90s, and the other probations of the 2000s? How many other institutions received serious single-sport and multi-sport penalties? What about the current sanctions imposed on the University of Michigan and the ongoing, multi-sport investigation of the University of North Carolina?

I'm afraid that the attempt to single out these institutions that did NOT receive the death penalty also violates the Wiki policy of "recentism" WP:RECENT. So, in sum, this material can be re-introduced if a) an explicit statement from the NCAA that these institutions almost received the death penalty can be found and sourced, and b) it can be established that these are the only institutions for which that is true. regards, Sensei48 (talk) 17:15, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the USC section was utter crap--someone added it not long after the sanctions were announced, and I reverted it as the infraction report didn't even infer the NCAA considered the death penalty here. Kentucky, Alabama and Baylor, however, are different stories based on my reading of the infractions reports and other sources.

In the Kentucky case, according to the report, the NCAA enforcement staff actually recommended the death penalty, but the infractions committee decided against it after UK forced out Sutton and Hagan. With the Baylor case, the committee said that the violations were as egregious as those found at SMU in '87--a pretty strong implication that Baylor only escaped because it cooperated fully. Same with Alabama, per [2]

I believe the section can be restored if it's noted that since the NCAA adopted the current criteria for the death penalty, these are the closest instances where the NCAA almost imposed it. It's gonna take some time to add the sources, but it can be done, I believe. I have no dog in this fight either--I'm a Carolina fan. Blueboy96 20:26, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, and thanks for the prompt response! But I don't think you've actually answered either of my summary points.

a) you say for Kentucky that "the NCAA enforcement staff actually recommended the death penalty" - if you can source that from the NCAA infractions committee directly, then great! You're halfway home.(see below for other half)

b)For Alabama - linked article includes the same half-statement from the same Yeager I criticize above - he says here'"There is no question that Alabama was staring down the barrel of a gun," said Yeager. "Had there been a different approach, there was a clear legislative opportunity to impose the death penalty."'

"opportunity"? speculative "had there been"? The undisputed fact is that there was not a death penalty, and even Yeager's statement does not say "almost." He says "could have if not" - which is useless as proof.

The overwhelming number of articles on the web about Alabama point out that as serious as its problems were, the Infractions Committe (Except for Yeager) praised UA's compliance and imposed no sanctions on the institution whatsoever. As bad as what UA did was, you just can't stretch an inappropriate comment from Yeager into a "near-death" type thing - again, in this case, the NCAA did not impose any penalty on Alabama.

The problem with your point about Baylor is that as you phrase it, it is WP:OR. You say that the committee asserts that Baylor's vios were as serious as SMU's. I'm sure you can source that, but as editors we can't make the necessary last step of inferring that this means that the infractions committee almost did anything. It did what it did - and that was not to impose the death penalty.

Plus, here is some OR for you. There is widespread speculation in articles related to this topic on the web that the effects on SMU were so devastating decades later that the NCAA is loath to and may never impose the death penalty again - comparisons often made to the dropping of nuclear weapons in WWII. But I cannot and will not add that to the article because it is inference and WP:OR.

Finally, the "other half" noted above - the 800 lb gorilla in the encyclopedia room. Why present only these schools in any context? Why not SE Missouri State or even the potential for your own Tarheels or many others? Are we sure that there are not other cases of schools with comparable multiple violations, since the time frame of the article, or even since SMU? If the list is not comprehensive and is speculative, it does not belong in the article.

And since the death penalty was not imposed in these cases, why would any of these cases belong in this article under any circumstance? The only proper place for sourced, non-speculative info on penalties would be in the individual articles about each institution. regards, Sensei48 (talk) 20:57, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed with the general criticism of Sensei48. I will just add the following: any attempt to find "near death" NCAA events constitutes a WP:OR violation because any definition of the term "near death" is purely interpretative and subjective. When the NCAA keeps its own list of "near deaths", it ceases to be WP:OR. Obamafan70 (talk) 22:23, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree as above, well put. We don't need to speculate. Either a school got the death penalty, or they didn't. Dayewalker (talk) 22:46, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Having read all of the above discussion, I will suggest that, in the "Current criteria" section, a second paragraph could be added mentioning that:

1. Because the committee deliberations are secret and confidential, fans and media often debate how close a school came to the death penalty, but there is no way to know.
2. Because no D-I program has received the death penalty since SMU, many observers believe that the COI is reluctant.

The majority of the last two paragraphs of the SMU section, including the Lombardi quote and the Kentucky incident could then be added to this. Thoughts? cmadler (talk) 18:20, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, your first point might be added if there is an actual WP:RS that supports it; as phrased here, it is still WP:OR. Ditto "many observers" - that would need exhaustive sourcing. The NCAA COI Kentucky report linked in the reverted section states clearly that despite the seriousness of the infractions, the university responded positively and a severe penalty was imposed, but not the death penalty - which was never identified as such, of course, but is alluded to in the "curtailed in whole or in part." It takes OR inference to turn that into the death penalty. And the other part of my critique above remains. Under what rubric - other than recentism - would we assume that UK or anyone else was "closer" to the death penalty than dozens of other schools with multiple-infractions situations? Has anyone researched every NCAA COI multiple infractions report since SMU to see if there is similar language? I just don't see any of this "maybe," "close," or "almost" stuff as being anything other than gossip - definitely not worthy of an encyclopedia. An editor in the previous section said it best. The NCAA has imposed it 5 times. That's fact, that's provable, and that's all we know for sure. regards,Sensei48 (talk) 19:49, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Should the Lombardi quote and the mention of the Kentucky incident be removed, then? (They're in the article now, in the SMU section.) cmadler (talk) 20:23, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Ah, sorry I missed that. Seems to me that a) it is a direct quotation from a RS involved in the process, and therefore could be put in the article, and that b) that quotation would fit into a modified version of your suggested sentence #2 above - it would be a good addition to the end of the "Current criteria," I think. It fits there perhaps better than where it now is. regards, Sensei48 (talk) 22:18, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I've moved the applicable content and added a recent quote from NCAA official Julie Roe Lach, cited to the NY Times. Let me know if you see any problems with these changes; I tried to stick closely to what is supported by RS. cmadler (talk) 12:01, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Well done, although I would prefer to remove any reference to Miami. First, it is recentist; UNC, SW Missouri State, even Oregon and Boise State as well as the rv'd Alabama, USC, and Baylor cases all have been or are in the midst of COI investigations that could prove similarly disastrous. Second, the Miami allegations surfaced less than a week ago and were made by a convicted felon serving an extended prison sentence who has little reason to tell the truth and plenty of reason to lie. The only investigation so far of any weight has been done by reporters for Yahoo Sports, who have no official standing whatsoever. What is appropriate and timely in a newsmagazine or blog is not in an encyclopedia. I believe that we need to wait until something definitive surfaces to mention Miami or any other school - and that could be years. The Lach quotation can stand by its own without reference to Miami. Sensei48 (talk) 14:40, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I thought about recentism with regard to Miami, but there are plenty of reliable sources that could be supplied to say that this case is much more substantial than those others. For example, the sentence in the NY Times article immediately preceding the Lach quote says "There appears to be little doubt that the severity and breadth of the claims against Miami’s athletics program are worse than what peers like Ohio State, North Carolina, Tennessee, Oregon and Louisiana State encountered in recent months." That's a pretty straightforward statement appearing in the New York Times. cmadler (talk) 20:14, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I understand the temptation to include Miami, but take a look back at the NYT quote - "There appears to be little doubt..." - a supposition if I have ever seen one, NYT or not. Would we find such a reference in Britannica online or in another unimpeachable online source? In any event - it is of questionable relevance in this article until and unless the dp becomes a fact. It might be useful in the article about the "scandal," I suppose, because all that can be said at this point factually is that Yahoo Sports did an investigation and published an online article about it. But until the NCAA COI rules and/or mentions the dp, it's all just inference - even in the NYT. regards, Sensei48 (talk) 19:57, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough, I won't restore such content in this article unless it actually happens. cmadler (talk) 12:05, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

USF

The lede sentence in the article states "The death penalty is the popular term for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)'s power to ban a school from competing in a sport for at least one year. It is the harshest penalty that an NCAA member school can receive." "Self-imposed" does not mean the same thing at all. A school voluntarily cancelling a season is NOT an NCAAsanction. Further, the suggestion that USF was "facing the death Penalty" is WP:OR and POV since the NCAA COI does not comment on its deliberations except when it imposes sanctions. USF is not an example of the NCAA forbidding a team to compete, which is what the so-called Death Penalty is. As noted before, this school-initiated action belongs in a discussion of USF, not here. Sensei48 (talk) 07:44, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Penn State

There have been quite a few calls (google search) for an NCAA death penalty against Penn State (in fact that is how I first even heard of an NCAA death penalty, and went to this article to find out what it was). I added a mention of it but it was reverted as "illegitimate".[3]

Earlier stuff I saw was from various op-ed columns and the like, that I didn't see as worth adding to the article, but the ESPN piece that I cited directly quotes the NCAA president at some length, which seems relevant to me. You've got the top NCAA official telling a major sports reporting outlet that there is an ongoing proceeding that may lead to an NCAA death penalty, and that the Penn State misconduct was far worse than SMU's. The SMU section of the article already discusses some other incidents in which a death penalty was considered by not imposed, so it's bogus to say that Penn State should only be mentioned in the article if a death penalty actually happens. So, I think the Penn State mention should go back into the article, though it could be worded/cited differently and/or put in a different part of the article than where I had it at first.

67.117.146.199 (talk) 05:51, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Please take a look at the discussions on this page above. Penn State has not received the death penalty. The five cases detailed in the article are the only schools to have done so. Possibilities, maybes, eligibilities for, "almosts," "may-haves" - this is not content appropriate for an encyclopedia. In the cases above, notably Alabama and USC, the death penalty was not imposed. As noted above, the deliberations of the Committee on Infractions are secret; all we ever know for sure is if a school actually gets it. The near-misses in the SMU section most emphatically fit and in no way resemble PSU innuendo - because SMU DID receive the death penalty, in large part because of the accumulation of infractions, and these were cited in the death penalty report. The lede of the article correctly states that this penalty has been imposed only five times. That is a fact - not a supposition, possibility, or guess. The material in the article is sourced to the cases where it was imposed. If PSU joins them, then add it.Sensei48 (talk) 07:10, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

BTW - the charges against Miami referenced above are far more extensive than those against PSU, and there was as you can note a hasty and fevered attempt to add Miami to the article. That all began nearly a year ago, and the investigation is ongoing. Emmerich made some similar comments at the time - but for the time being Miami has disappeared from the radar. It and several other schools like Ohio State and North Carolina have serious and multiple violations under investigation as well but belong in the article no more than does Penn State. Please check WP:RECENT.Sensei48 (talk) 07:17, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

There is no "innuendo" about PSU. There is tons of coverage about it. I don't think it's recentism. It will be an issue for many years to come. Either a death penalty (or something like it) will be imposed and will have to be documented in the article; or else it won't be, and the outcry from people calling for it will also be visible and significant enough to merit coverage in the article. I'd accept that it's currently an unresolved issue and there will be some kind of decision in the next few weeks, so it's reasonable to do nothing for now and revisit the issue when there's more developments.

The Miami stuff (I hadn't heard of it, but just looked it up) was apparently about somebody giving improper payments to players, which is chickenfeed compared to PSU's covering up years of child molestation, so I can't agree about the charges against Miami being "more extensive" than those against PSU. I do think the Miami stuff should be in the article since it received extensive press coverage. The idea that the NCAA is the sole acceptable source of info about this stuff is illogical. We're supposed to report all significant viewpoints (WP:NPOV). 67.117.146.199 (talk) 08:38, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

But we are not supposed to include gossip, whatever its source, and that is what Emmerich is doing now and has done before. You say "will be imposed" - "or something like it" - "outcry" - same words applied to Miami and USC, whose violations were far more extensive athletically, Miami because they involved by allegation a huge number of players receiving payoffs (more than 100 in first reports over several years) and USC because the infractions covered several sports, indicating the dreaded "lack of institutional control." It is that phrase that is the basis for the suppositions in the PSU case and was for USC and OSU. The fact is that no one knows what if any penalties will be imposed on PSU - or if in a case in which misconduct such as alleged is even covered by NCAA regulations.

"Extensive press coverage" is exactly what the WP recentism ban is designed to guard against. The hue and cry against Miami was every bit as big as in the PSU case, and Ohio State generated just as many headlines - but the ultimate disposition of the OSU case did not result in a death penalty, nor did it for USC - nor did it for dozens of other schools through the decades whose infractions were ongoing and serious and about whom death penalty discussions MAY have occurred.

There are other questions and uncertainties involved, many of them. The NCAA may not even have the legal power to impose this penalty; it may be investigated for anti-trust by Congress; it may be sued for anti-trust by schools and leagues who do not feel they have equal access to revenues; it may be rendered completely irrelevant (lots of people believe it to be already) by the college football/bowl/playoff coalitions, which most emphatically do not operate within and NCAA structure and have been largely ignoring it, up to and including the university presidents.

In the Penn State Nittany Lions article there is no mention of the scandal at all, likely because it is ongoing and there is no resolution. Penn State Nittany Lions football presents a sober and factual short summary with no sanctions mentioned and that redirects to Penn State child sex abuse scandal, a careful and sourced discussion of the case. In none of these is the death penalty even mentioned - because the articles are adhering to the Wiki policies cited. IF any mention of the possible death penalty (and the case is lost right there) for PSU belongs anywhere, it would be in those articles, likely the last one. But I'll bet that editors who took such painstaking care to write that article objectively with sources would revert this as recentist or WP:OR faster than I did here. This kind of speculation may be proper for a newspaper or a blog but not an encycploedia. Sensei48 (talk) 14:57, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

1. "Gossip" IMHO is the stuff that appears in the reader comments section of the news reporting on the subject. Once it's being published in the editorial sections, it's no longer gossip but sourced opinion that we should include. And if the NCAA president goes on TV to talk about it and multiple secondary sources pick up on what he says,[4][5] that easily meets WP's standards of noteworthiness. (Disclosure: I haven't actually watched the video interview since my computer isn't set up for that, so I'm going by the written reporting).
2. I'd similarly expect the NCAA president to know what the NCAA's legal options are, so if he says the death penalty is a possibility and multiple sources report his saying so, that's also significant. By "significant", I again mean that it's something we should write up per WP:NPOV. I'm not sure what you're getting at about the bowl/playoff coalitions operating outside of NCAA auspices. Are you really saying that PSU might get invited to bowl games even if it's banned by the NCAA from playing in the regular season? If that's even slightly plausible and there's a source for it (I'd be astonished, but I don't follow this stuff) then it should be mentioned in the article too.
3. Going by the amount of prison time imposed on Sandusky alone, the PSU stuff is far more serious than the Miami stuff. And the Freeh report implicates the top levels of PSU management. I do think WP should report on the Miami stuff based on the available documentation.
4. The PSU articles you mention should indeed describe the Sandusky affair, probably at more length than they currently do, though it may take a while to converge since as you say the info is still developing.
5. It looks like there will be an announcement tomorrow about NCAA sanctions against PSU,[6][7] so we may as well wait and see what happens.

67.117.146.199 (talk) 19:54, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Ok - agreed and we will see, and at that point an addition may be justified. But those two links ARE rumor and innuendo - the very epitome of what needs to be kept out of a Wikipedia article, even if the source of the innuendo is the NCAA president - who if you didn't know has no power to impose penalties. This is not like the NFL Commissioner, who does. The COI referenced often above is who will be heard from tomorrow, though Emmerich as a figurehead may present them. The relative seriousness of PSU and Miami is a POV, not a fact. 4 officials shelter one molester with multiple victims over 14 years vs. a payoff scandal that may involve scores of players, change the outcomes of entire seasons, programs, and lives of far more people than Sandusky. The PSU scandal affects PSU only; Miami may have an effect across all of college sports. Which is ultimately more serious is not for editors to determine; that's the readers' job. The editors' job is to present facts dispassionately when and only when they ARE facts. Sensei48 (talk) 04:21, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

July 23 - Penn State et al

So I guess for the moment we will have a portion of the SMU section in the NCAA death penalty article about 3 schools that did not get the death penalty, regardless of how illogical that is. The edits I have appended today cast serious doubt on the nature of the assertions made - the language of the actual COI report on Baylor uses the SMU death penalty as a touchstone to distinguish Baylor's response from SMU's, not to indicate that the Committee ever actually considered the death penalty for Baylor. The COI report for Kentucky is a bit more explicit on that point but again trips over itself to praise the university's handling of the affair. In both cases, the reference to the death penalty is used by the COI to highlight the ameliorative actions of the schools' administrations, not to tell the world that the schools "almost" received the death penalty, or in the case of Baylor that it was ever under serious consideration - to suggest so from the text is WP:OR. Penn State is problematic, not surprising for such recentism - you have Erickson justifying PSU's acceptance of the consent decree on the basis of the threat of the death penalty and the NCAA's Ray immediately denying that it was ever considered.

When I removed this kind of innuendo and OR from the article before, two or three other editors concurred in the extensive discussions above. Currently, though, I'm outnumbered by User:HangingCurve and User:JoBrLa, so by all our Wiki rules I won't revert it. However - the COI quotations added today are important to clarify what the committee actually said and thus let readers come to their own judgments.

More critically and per the discussion above, I've CN tagged the assertion that these cases are the ONLY ones since SMU in which the COI actually considered a death penalty. Please take a look above regarding that point. Death penalty talk surfaced in the recent USC, Ohio State, Miami, Alabama, and North Carolina scandals and there was even a whisper or two regarding Boise State and Oregon. You'd need a sound source - which I maintain above you can never find - that the cases presented in the article now were the only times the death penalty was considered.

Finally, the point needs to be addressed about why an article about the death penalty would include cases in which there was no death penalty. The proper place for such discussion is in the articles on the athletic programs in question and in the articles on the scandals - which I note HangingCurve has attempted to do. More soon, I'm sure. regards, Sensei48 (talk) 01:42, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Sensei48, you keep saying "innuendo" and "OR" referring to materials that are nothing of the sort. The links presented are mainstream news reporting, not innuendo or OR. As long as the statements are documented by WP:RS, they are by definition not original research (OR is stuff that we make up ourselves), so calling them that makes you sound uninformed. They are not innuendo either, as far as I've seen (I'm remembering one I think you had a problem with, where CBS News interviewed somebody on background before the sanctions came down and said what was coming). That is (for better or worse) common journalistic practice and I don't think there was anything controversial about that article, and of course we now know the info was correct. Finally if the DP is seriously considered for a particular program and there is substantial sourcing centered on the issue (which in the PSU case there certainly is), then of course it should be mentioned in the DP article, just as Impeachment investigations of United States federal officials lists many officials who weren't actually impeached. This is an encyclopedia and people looking to this article to find out about the NCAA DP (when it was applied, when it was considered, etc.) should be able to find in it what they are looking for.

The NCAA certainly did not deny that it considered the DP (in fact the first page of the consent decree explicitly says they considered it carefully). What they denied is that they threatened PSU with it as a way to get PSU to sign off on the non-DP sanctions.

I do agree that the statement that the DP was seriously considered only twice post-SMU needs better documentation, but it doesn't seem out of the question to me that it can be sourced. It could alternatively be reworded as "two known cases where the DP was considered were..." though I don't have a problem leaving it with the CN tag for a reasonable period.

67.117.146.199 (talk) 09:30, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

You might want to refrain from WP:NPA, especially if you think that the Wikipedia prohibition against WP:OR is "stuff we make up ourselves" -a major part of that article is a prohibition against synthesis, which "includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position not advanced by the sources" and which is discussed at more length with examples at WP:SYN, culminating with the point that "precise analysis must have been published by a reliable source in relation to the topic before it can be published on Wikipedia." To suggest that the mere point that a statement appears in a mainstream media outlet means it is not or cannot be innuendo is callow at the least, and "common journalistic practice" is oblique at best to the kind of research required by an encyclopedia article.

As far as the NCAA threat - the source I provided for the statement by Ed Ray is unequivocal. But look further, to the actual consent decree which you can find in its entirety here - [8]. Here is the operative paragraph - in its entirety, not cherry-picked:

As a result, the NCAA has determined that the University's sanctions be designed to not only penalize the University for contravention of the NCAA Constitution and Bylaws, but also to change the culture that allowed this activity to occur and realign it in a sustainable fashion with the expected norms and values of intercollegiate athletics. Moreover, the NCAA recognizes that in this instance no student-athlete is responsible for these events and, therefore, the NCAA has fashioned its sanctions in consideration of the potential impact on all student~athletes. To Wit, after serious consideration and significant discussion, the NCAA has determined not to impose the so-called "death penalty." While these circumstances certainly are severe, the suspension of competition is most warranted when the institution is a repeat violator and has failed to cooperate or take corrective action. The University has never before had NCAA major violations, accepted these penalties and corrective actions, has removed all of the individual offenders identified by PSS from their past senior leadership roles, has itself commissioned the FSS investigation and provided unprecedented access and openness, in some instances, even agreed to waive attorney-client privilege, and already has implemented many corrective actions. Acknowledging these and other factors, the NCAA does not deem the so-called "death penalty" to be appropriate.

This is not a denial of a threat at all, nor is it a threat. It is a careful and considered explanation of why the DP is inappropriate in the PSU case and articulates once again what the standard for it is - "the suspension of competition is most warranted when the institution is a repeat violator and has failed to cooperate or take corrective action" immediately preceding extensive praise of PSU's handling of the affair. Ditto the quotations from COI reports I added to the article regarding Kentucky and Baylor - all of these distinguish a death penalty case like SMU from the cases under consideration.

Moreover, a fifteen minute search turned up half a dozen or more similar COI reports regarding USC, Alabama, Oregon, Boise State, Georgia Tech, Ohio State, West Virginia (this might be instructive - [9] and more. An encyclopedia needs to be encyclopedic - if you want to mention cases where you believe that the DP was "considered," it's an all or nothing proposition, even if you arbitrarily limit it to the post-SMU period and ignore cases from the 50s, 60s, and 70s where the DP was also "considered." In either case, you would then have an article about the DP full of cases that did not result in the DP, which as I note above is entirely illogical.

The proper Wikpedia solution would be to start and write a separate article on cases where according to comprehensive research the COI brought up the DP in its infractions report. That would be a very large article indeed, one that would be challenging to source and write. It would also be the only truly appropriate place for these non-DP cases. Sensei48 (talk) 11:01, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Clarification: I didn't say stuff in RS was automatically not innuendo; I said it was automatically not OR, which is different. In the case of the specific links we discussed earlier, I claimed that in addition to not being OR, they were (as a separate matter) also not innuendo. If you still think they were innuendo I'd appreciate an explanation--it's possible we're not referring to the same links. Yes of course I realize that "stuff we make up ourselves" includes synthesis. The alleged DP threat was discussed in another of the news articles, not the consent decree; the consent decree only says that the NCAA gave "serious consideration and significant discussion" to the proposal.

As for the possibility of innuendo appearing in an RS: I suppose it could happen, such as if person A was trying to convey a viewpoint that person B was culpable, without coming out and saying so explicitly. If we determined that the viewpoint was significant (and in Wikipedia the most solid marker of something's significance is the weight of secondary RS discussing it) then our duty under NPOV would be to include it, with appropriate in-text attribution and with due care towards any implicated living people. But I think that has not been an issue here so far.

Finally, about the cases where the DP was considered but not carried out: again the standard for whether to include it is the level of significance, as measured (among other things) by the weight of secondary coverage. In the PSU case the secondary coverage is extensive, so it should be included at some length. I don't know about other cases. Perhaps they could just be listed with citations but without devoting space to details. If there's still enough that the article gets overlong, it's fine to split it out to another article, like the impeachment investigation article I linked earlier. Right now the article is just 25k, so it can grow for a while before splitting it is warranted (WP:SIZERULE). 67.117.146.199 (talk) 18:43, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Alabama football, Baylor basketball, Southern California football

Why are these programs not listed as "near-death occurences"? When 'Bama was sanctioned for major violations in 2002, Tom Yeager said the "Death Penalty" was on the table and that the Crimson Tide were "staring down the barrel of a gun". When Baylor was sanctioned in 2003-2005, the Death Penalty was on the table due to the seriousness of the sanctions and the fact that a player was murdered, and indeed a half-season death penalty was issued. When USC got sanctioned, there were violations in both football and men's basketball with Reggie Bush and O.J. Mayo, and the death penalty was considered. --JoBrLa (talk) 23:04, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Because there is an open and unresolved question as to whether ANY of these should be in this article. If you'll look above on this page, there are extensive discussions about why, and I reiterate the point I make immediately above, one supported by other editors in times past, that this article should deal with facts - and the relevant provable fact is that only five schools have ever gotten the DP. Until the open discussion by Emmert especially and Ray in the PSU case regarding the DP, in no other case has the NCAA made as specific an admission that the COI was considering the DP. At best, the infractions folks would say that a case had serious implications. Yeager above was talking out of turn and violating a long-standing COI policy of restricting comment on infractions cases to the formal reports. This is all treated above on this page - as is the point that the cases that you mention are only a selection of a much larger number where the final infractions report cites NCAA by-law 19.5.2.3 - the death penalty by-law. In addition to the three you mention, Ohio State, Miami, Oregon, Boise State, North Caroline, Southwest Missouri State, West Virginia,and several others have had that rule mentioned in infractions committee reports in recent years. As above - even if you restrict the DP discussion to post-SMU, you still have the rest of the 80s plus the 90s to go through infractions reports to see where else 19.5.2.3 has been invoked. If you want to deal with cases where the DP was NOT invoked but mentioned, an encyclopedia must deal with the topic comprehensively and not cherry pick the ones that have gotten the most recent publicity.

As soon as the Penn State stuff settles down, I intend to move to create a separate article to which this one will link for non-DP cases and get all this OT stuff out of this article. But that is going to be a major undertaking, because the list of schools who have faced a DP judgment is far, far larger than the three colleges you site here.Sensei48 (talk) 00:53, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't have much interest or opinion on the general topic of NCAA practices, though I made an edit discussed above, due to finding this article via the general news coverage of the PSU matter. As a general editing principle though, it's normal and IMHO desirable for Wikipedia articles about current or historical events to include reactions and interpretations (i.e. sourced viewpoints, per WP:NPOV) rather than just the raw facts. That's why WP:RS focuses so much on secondary sources and WP:PRIMARY sources are to be used with caution. [10] is another item about a possible death penalty for PSU. I'll avoid editing the article any further for now, but maybe someone can incorporate material from that link as appropriate. 67.117.146.199 (talk) 23:22, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Good points, and I'm sure we'll be revisiting this in more detail soon. Ironically, however, the very article you cite has become a bone of contention of sorts on the Penn State child sex abuse scandal page. Intentionally or not, the writer garbled the facts badly, and there are primary sources (on camera pronouncements and interviews published verbatim) that contradict the writer's assertions. IMO the writer was going for a sensational headline - and he got it. That is the most widely linked/alluded to article across the web on the death penalty possibility, and it is one-sided, unresearched, and missing the dissociation between what Erickson is saying and what the actual NCAA officials said. Worse, even Erickson's actual statements on-camera qualify his pronouncements with "may" and "would" that are at variance with the article's apparent definiteness. Shoddy work as journalism, though no one seems to care much - it's the headline that counts. Sensei48 (talk) 06:10, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

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