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Articles
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Pac-10 findings make sense By Malamute, Updated 13 March 2004
With the Pac-10 report in place, it becomes harder for the NCAA, which meets in June, to trump the severity of the penalties with much harsher ones of its own. However, the Pac-10 ruling could have some far reaching consequences. -- The Pac-10 says that the UW should give Rick Neuheisel a letter of reprimand for his gambling activity. I hope he tells them what they can do with it, as should the other good people who will receive an upgrade to their original letters of caution and admonishment. -- No more boat rides for recruits in all sports, not just football, for a one year period, so says the infractions committee. That'll burn more gas on the clogged freeways, adding to the trade deficit. -- The UW must implement a gambling education program for its athletic department personnel and coaches. In other words, it is illegal to count cards in blackjack. The NCAA will be looking at the same set of allegations the conference examined and will have to dredge up some new ones if it wants to come down any harder. Back in 1993, however, the NCAA added some milder sanctions of its own to the draconian ones levied by the conference against Washington. Besides placing the UW on two years probation, the NCAA limited its football telecasts to four for one season. Come June, we hope that the governing body will be as lenient as it was back then. We fans can live with just four telecasts, considering the Cal, Arizona and Nevada games last season. With the conference report in place, what remains is the resolution of the alleged betting pools that existed in 2000, 2001 and 2002. The Pac-10 ruling stated, "Considering all of the information provided, the Pac-10 believes an office pool existed in 2000, '01 and '02, but is not prepared to name individuals without further evidence." These small stakes pools run within the athletic department were allegedly run by former graduate assistant coach Ikaika Malloe. According to press reports, Malloe says that head coach Keith Gilbertson and several other coaches participated in those pools, not just the 1999 pool, which is outside the NCAA’s stature of limitations. The 1999 pool is the only one Gilbertson says he can remember participating in. The statements by Malloe and Gilbertson’s possible role may prove troublesome. In its cover letter to President Lee Huntsman, the NCAA requested that Gilbertson, among others, be in attendance during the NCAA's meeting to be held on June 11-13. Malloe says he ran the 2001-02 office pools at the UW and that Gilbertson along with current and former assistants Chuck Heater, Tim Hundley, Brent Myers, and Steve Axman had participated. The UW says that Malloe’s testimony is unreliable because he changed his original story. Originally, he stated that the 1999 pool was the only one he knew about. During the Pac-10’s investigation (June 23-25), Malloe says he has limited knowledge of betting pools. On Sept. 26, he called the NCAA voluntarily and changed his story, saying he wanted to clear his conscience. He said he set up the 2001-02 office pools and named the coaches who participated, Gilbertson among them. Gilbertson denied doing so. And now, according to Ted Miller of the Seattle P-I, “The NCAA's interest appears to be not just in the pools' existence and who participated but also in the possibility of an orchestrated cover-up.” Says the likeable Jim Moore (an incarnation of Shakespeare's Puck) of the same paper, “Reached yesterday (March 11) in El Paso, Texas, where he is an assistant on Mike Price's staff at UTEP, former UW co-defensive coordinator Tim Hundley said there was not a cover-up. Nonetheless, this thing still has the potential to make Dr. Scheyer look small in comparison..." The NCAA may view a cover up as more serious than the actual violation, that is, betting in small stakes pools. On a much larger scale, two former presidential cover-ups led to one’s resignation from office and the other’s impeachment. If the NCAA is to prove a cover up existed, they will need to produce several reliable witnesses to back up their claims. Otherwise, it appears that it’s Malloe’s word against the word of the current and former coaches who allegedly participated in the 2000-2002 pools but don't remember doing so. Ignoring media hyperbole, the NCAA should handle its investigation with the same professional sangfroid as the conference investigator's displayed. The much maligned athletic program at Washington deserves at least that. As for Rick Neuheisel and other college coaches in America, the NCAA must face some gargantuan hypocrisy of its own. It faces two counts of allegedly breaking its own bylaws when its representatives grilled Neuheisel in June. For that reason, like the Pac-10 did, it will most likely drop Neuheisel's gambling incident like a hot potato and let him continue his coaching career if he should want to pursue another opportunity in that field. Also, you can’t tell me that at least half the college coaches in the country haven’t participated in small stakes gambling pools at one time or another during their careers. Furthermore, it is hard to believe that former compliance director Dana Richardson is the only lawyerly person who has misinterpreted that miserably written bylaw on gambling. While we await the NCAA’s decision in June, considering the mildness of the Pac-10 scolding, it would almost seem as if the Seattle media has parlayed a two-bit gambling incident into the crime of the century, eventually costing Rick Neuheisel his job, while forcing Barbara Hedges' early retirement and Dana Richardson's resignation. Certainly, the sensationalism of the stores created an atmosphere of public distrust, one at odds with their job security. That’s the best that can be said about the media’s behavior during the last ten months. Richard Linde (a.k.a., Malamute) can be reached at malamute@4malamute.com |
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After
ten months of media overkill you would have thought the UW was headed for the
NCAA death penalty. Instead, the Pac-10’s findings are nothing more than a slap
on the wrist, which is exactly what it should have been considering the inane
set of allegations.