Florida State, Bowden trade integrity for a few more wins

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Florida State University’s final hope to overturn sanctions against its athletic teams came on Wednesday in the form of a desperate 21-page rebuttal to the NCAA, which has penalized the school for providing improper assistance in an online music class to 61 athletes in 10 sports.

The penalties include four years of probation as well as a reduction in scholarships. But Florida State isn’t arguing against that. Officials are only appealing the NCAA’s demand that all victories during the time those infractions occurred be vacated, even though the university admits to the violations — indeed, it was self-reported to the NCAA — and the athletes who received improper assistance competed during that time.

The punishment isn’t fair, the university argues. But this isn’t about fairness. It’s about a legendary football coach, a battle for the all-time victory record and a university that is willing to vacate its integrity to chase a few more wins.

As it stands today, longtime football coach Bobby Bowden, an institution at Florida State, has 382 career victories. He is one behind Penn State’s Joe Paterno for the all-time NCAA record. They have been locked in a battle over that record for years, neither wanting to retire and allow the other to claim ultimate victory.

But if the NCAA sanctions are upheld, Bowden will have to vacate 14 wins during the 2006 and ‘07 seasons.

“In this case, the [committee] was confronted, for the first time in at least a decade, with egregious academic fraud and all of the other factors that it considers critical in assessing a vacation penalty,” the NCAA’s Jerry R. Parkinson wrote in a letter to Florida State that was made public last month. “In light of this extraordinary number of aggravating factors, imposition of the vacation penalty was an easy, virtually compelled decision for the [committee].”

If the victories are vacated and Bowden drops to 368 wins, he will fall longer, the chase for the record would be over. Not surprisingly, there has been an uproar in Tallahassee, Fla., over the NCAA’s decision.

“This committee is just wrong,” T.K. Wetherell, the university president, told reporters in June. “The rationale for doing that isn’t accurate.”

Here’s the kicker: Even if the violations took place and wins are vacated, the university is further arguing that any individual records achieved during that time should not be vacated. Including, presumably, the records of coaches.

“The Committee should not permit the vacation penalty to extend to the individual records of innocent student-athletes and coaches,” the university argued in its final appeal. “It should not uncecessarily subject the innocent to punishment.”

But why shouldn’t Bowden be held responsible for the violations of student-athletes in his football program? Apparently, Florida State is using the Kenneth Lay-Enron defense: The coach knew nothing about the class, the culprits were mere lower level staffers and therefore Bowden shouldn’t be blamed for what occurred.

“The one group of people that were not involved in this thing were the coaches,” Wetherell said. “They’re the one group that’s being penalized.”

The NCAA disagreed.

“What happened in that course was simply a symptom of a much larger disease – a systemic, `environmental’ problem among a large group of student-athletes and three staff members,” Parkinson wrote.

And that points directly to the leadership at the school. Including Bowden. Shouldn’t the buck stop with him whether he knew of the class or not?

Apparently not, according to some.

Greg Cote of the Miami Herald recently wrote: “It jars the mind to think that small-scale shenanigans involving a single online music-history course would ruin what Bowden has worked a lifetime to achieve.”

Fourteen fewer victories won’t ruin Bowden’s legacy. Trading integrity for wins will.