Right is Right and I Think I'll Be My Own Moral Compass in Sports

The national media loves to expound on Oklahoma State and Mike Gundy. They are back at it with Cowboy basketball and the punishment leveled at OSU by the NCAA. Personally, I'm kind of fed up with their opinions.

STILLWATER -- They say history is a good teacher. That can cut two ways, repeat history when it is bad and you're in for more bad. Repeat it when it is good and you are likely in for the good. Change it up in the future and you should get some different results. If the past few months and especially the last week to 10 days has taught us that we aren't following up the lessons from some of the history books. COVID-19 had forced us to change hygiene and personal habits, it looks like it is working. George Floyd's death has taught us that we haven't paid enough attention to race relations. The talk has been good at times, but the persistence to the issue hasn't. Now, on topics much less critical and important, but in certain hearts very passionate, the national media is back on Oklahoma State and letting us know the penalties Oklahoma State basketball received on Friday are for the greater good.

Really? I pick up the Sunday paper and I'm treated to a column by Dan Wolken of USA Today that is telling me the unfair penalties levied at Oklahoma State are for the greater good and will help clean up the sport.

What happened to doing the right thing? I've followed the FBI investigation that started out of the United States Court for the Southern District of New York. I know all the schools that were caught in the trap. Some had money that turned over from either financial or professional representatives and then was used in recruiting. I followed the shoe companies (primarily Adidas) and the influence brought into the recruiting process. I'm sure I couldn't litigate the case, but I could easily write a Cliff Notes version. 

While some schools received recruiting advantages leading to on the court competitive advantages, Oklahoma State did not.

No Cowboy recruits received a penny of the money used to indict former Oklahoma State assistant coach Lamont Evans of his crime.

Further, there was no academic fraud and no lack of institutional control, the favorite ugly charge of the NCAA. Oklahoma State gained nothing other than a black eye from Evans' involvement and arrest. The one OSU player that received a bribe from Evans, paid it back and served a suspension imposed by the school. 

Oklahoma State completely cooperated with the NCAA as evidenced by this response by Committee on Infractions chairman Larry Parkinson.

"The institution fully cooperated as soon as they heard about the circumstances." Parkinson said. Parkinson is the director of enforcement for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. "Makes you wonder what the penalties would have been if Oklahoma State had benefited and/or had not cooperated.

Now, here comes Wolken and his story with these gems:

The penalties levied against Oklahoma State on Friday were fairly severe: A postseason ban for 2020-21, three years of probation, loss of a scholarship for three years and other various recruiting restrictions. Given the details of the case, which involved former assistant Lamont Evans taking between $18,150 and $22,000 in bribes to steer athletes toward financial advisers, a postseason ban was surprising. 

And maybe that’s true, to a certain extent. Evans, the former assistant, is long gone from the program. He wasn’t buying players, he was wheeling and dealing to profit for himself. And by getting hit with a postseason ban now, Oklahoma State’s one season with incoming recruit Cade Cunningham, who has a chance to be the No. 1 overall NBA draft pick in 2021, is likely ruined. You can understand how the school and its fans might view that penalty as very unfair.

Then comes the grand summation from Wolken.

But if you care at all about the best interests of college basketball, you can’t have it both ways this time. Either you want the NCAA to make a legitimate attempt to clean up the sport, which may include some really tough penalties, or what’s the point of even trying?

The NCAA has no choice here.

No, let me help Dan here. There is always a choice, right and wrong. It is wrong to disobey common courtesy during a pandemic that could endanger other people. If you are sick, stay at home. Cover your face with a mask. Wash your hands and social distance with strangers and people you have not been confined with. 

Treat others the way you would want to be treated. That is a big one that comes from a major book in history. It would go a long way with race relations and, more important, all human relations. Police officers treat every person the same with no regard to the color of their skin. Apply the safety or force you've been trained for with regard to the situation and not how a person looks.

However, I don't see the need to punish the unjust in college sports to prove that the NCAA means business is cleaning up college basketball. 

Hey Dan, after the NCAA took a sledge hammer to the Cowboys there was plenty of angst. There was also head coach Mike Boynton not pleading and begging for his players to stay, especially potential one and done super recruit Cade Cunningham and graduate transfer Ferron Flavors Jr. No instead, Boynton is saying he would discuss with them and their family and then whatever is decided, he would be supportive. 

“Just from the player standpoint, I’m not going to allow any player to get screwed in this process. That’s not going to happen,” Boynton said during a news conference on Friday. “Any player who stays with our program, will do it with their eyes wide open as to what exactly is going on. They’ll understand that there’s a risk involved, for instance, a lot of talk has been about Cade. I’ve also got a grad transfer committed and signed to come to our university, so it would in a sense be his only opportunity to play college basketball, his last opportunity. So, those conversations will be real and thorough and I’m going to make sure we guide them and help them make the best decision. And if it’s the case they want to be at Oklahoma State, then we’re going to that as well, but we’re not going to screw these kids over again after what has already happened.”

How about it? Why doesn't the NCAA go and punish the programs that really deserve it. The ones that created an unfair recruiting advantage leading to a competitive advantage. The ones that knowingly broke the rules. Maybe, not as much for the ones with a rogue coach that lined his pockets, while the school, as soon as they learned about it, fired him and corrected his violations.

I think that would clean up the sport. It seems like a right and simple concept, punishment that fits the crime. 

Over the years Oklahoma State has been punished severely by the NCAA and deserved it. The probation levied in 1989 after the run of success in football the Cowboys deserved. The probation back in 1977, deserved as well. This time in basketball it doesn't add up just like the fiction written by Thayer Evans and George Dohrmann in Sports Illustrated didn't add up and in a thorough investigation was proven fiction. By the way for current readers of this site, both Evans and Dohrmann have been gone from SI for a long time as have all people involved in that series. That is rightfully so.  

While were on this topic of right is right, etc. 

This applies to Dan but many more national scribes, including Sports Illustrated's Pat Forde. I learned some things this week and Oklahoma State head football coach Mike Gundy, who took a blasting from many of the national writers back in April after his teleconference was right about a few things.

Okay, I'm not defending Gundy's label of the virus or his choice for news source, but his desire to get student-athletes back early, test, and quarantine and create a community. Coach Gundy was definitely onto something. 

Three positive tests at Oklahoma State, three (one staff member) at Marshall, five at Alabama, seven in multiple sports at Arkansas State, and how many that haven't been reported. The NBA says they will test an isolated colony of pro basketball players and staff as often as everyday down at Walt Disney World of Sports. 

College sports, especially the financial engine of college sports in this country, football will be dependent on young men and the staff of coaches and support personnel that guide and care for them. If they can be disciplined, and make sacrifices like most of us have during this pandemic, football has a chance. Those would be primarily, social sacrifices that will limit exposure to COVID-19. If they don't, then football may start, but it won't last long. 

It's a lot like Gundy explained it and got kicked around for his frank honesty. College football teams will have to be communities. If they are and they sacrifice and are careful then it will happen. If not, no college football. The game is truly reliant on those that play it and will have to decide themselves how badly they want to play.