I know SMU’s football scandal during the 80’s led to a “Death Penalty”, and also the NCAA saw how ruinous it was for the program and have never handed out again. By the letter of the law, has any other program been eligible for a “Death Penalty”?
I think the answer to that question would depend on the NCAA having firm, published guidelines, and I (speaking entirely through my hat) doubt that. I think they make it up as they go.
Depends on the school. NCAA will never administer a death penalty to Ohio State. But I can see them handing a death penalty to a UNLV-type school.
Which brings to mind the old joke that the NCAA is so mad at UNLV that they put Cleveland State on probation.
There was some speculation (amongst the schadenfreude fans in the Pac-10) that USC was flirting with the death penalty with the Reggie Bush scandal, but it didn’t happen.
I believe that’s why they didn’t mention “lack of institutional control” in the latest Tressel allegations.
The problem with the death penalty is not that it destroys the specific sport that it’s targeting (it’s exceedingly good at that), but that there’s too much collateral damage. The SMU death penalty ended up bringing about the end of the SWC; this hurt all the other schools besides SMU, even though they did nothing wrong. And since SMU ended up on the outside looking in when conferences re-aligned, all the other sports programs at the school ended up in an inferior conference as well.
The ESPN 30 for 30 special “Pony Excess” mentioned that that, at one point 7 (IIRC) SWC schools were on probation simutamously. They also mentioned that Arkansas going to the SEC was the 1st thread in the SWC disintegration.
Slight correction: Jerry Tarkanian said the NCAA was so mad at Kentucky, they put Cleveland St. on probation.
:smack: I knew UNLV was involved in the story somehow. 
In the mid-90’s Sports Illustrated did a cover story calling for Miami (“The U” one) to shutdown its football program due to an extended list of sins of commission and omission.
I’ll note they weren’t calling on the NCAA to give Miami the death penalty because they knew NCAA wasn’t going to go that far.
The NCAA sucks, but it is all we have to govern college sports. All big programs cheat. You get nailed for crossing the line and calling attention to it.
The school and program that deserved a death penalty was University of Michigan men’s basketball. Over $600k pd to players in the 90’s and an untold amount in the 70’s & 80’s.
Another thing that torques me off is that ESPN refuses to acknowledge that the Fraud Five’s Championship game appearances were vacated.
Could someone please define death penalty, as it relates to sports?
Shutting down the program. In the case of SMU, the NCAA canceled their 1987 season; the school on their own also canceled the 1988 season as they were unable to field a team (players and coaches tend to wander off for Elsewhere). It took 20 years for them to become competitive again.