The sanctions that SMU received from the NCAA are no news to campus. Everyone has heard of them, but what we all are waiting on is whether SMU will appeal the decision. It seems like a formality, with playoffs on the table, that SMU will appeal the penalties. But what if we didn’t appeal?
This would not be a popular decision – people want their Moody Magic back and a shot at the big time. However, it would be an interesting thing if SMU did not appeal the sanctions. It would ignite a firestorm, but what if R. Gerald Turner stood up and said that “the buck stops here,” and that we will be accepting the suspensions and moving forward with more academic integrity and oversight for both our programs and the schools from which we draw players from.
As things are, it seems like we are starting our second century in very much the same way that we conducted ourselves in the first – getting slammed with NCAA recruiting sanctions and seeming like cheaters again. One would think that our school had learned its lesson from the Death Penalty. While it is not totally our fault that a player of ours had falsified grades, obviously the case can be made (by the NCAA of course) that these infractions were indeed extremely serious.
Being a leader is not an easy thing, and sometimes it involves making tough decisions and accepting things that may not be totally fair. These sanctions offer SMU an opportunity to turn, again, from its past in an attempt to lead collegiate athletics into a more accountable and fair future. Living up to the reality of shaping world changers is a difficult thing.
The only problem with this theory is that SMU’s seniors, and indeed other players, would be unfairly missing out on their postseason chances. And I do agree that an appeal can be justified on that basis alone – that the penalties were too strict and unfairly harm those seniors who very likely had nothing to do with the incident or any kind of violations at all.
That is what I am sure our president and board are discussing right now –whether the righteousness of fighting for those few seniors will outweigh the possible implications of appealing a case of academic ineligibility. In the case of an appeal, we could possibly be portrayed as the school that is OK with compromising academic integrity for athletic achievement – so long as we do not lose a postseason over it. And that is press that I am sure this university does not need.
But at the same time, the press from basketball and the postseason is too good to miss out on, so we shall see which way Turner and other SMU higher-ups decide to go.
