Ok, enlighten me on what rules they actually violated. It reads to me as if they worked for a private business and they were paid more then the time they actually worked. Why is that bad? What am I missing? I have to confess I am not a big football fan so really am lost here about this rule:).
They are getting paid but not working...booster is paying them off. Can't do that if you are an NCAA athlete.
were paid more then the time they actually worked. Why is that bad? What am I missing?
It’s a way to hide payola to the student/athlete, which is a big no-no.
Only the coaches and administrators are supposed to get paid, not the kids who put the asses in the seats.
Why is that bad? What am I missing?
Boosters in the past would promise star recruits that if they came to the Univ. of Oklahoma (or anywhere, mind you) that they would be given a job where they didn't have to show up to get paid, or given overtime they didn't work. It is an illegal inducement and in a sense, pay for play, and a method of drawing recruits to a program that needed them. It is said that former player Brian Bosworth used to work a few hours at a GM plant and did nothing but maliciously screw loose bolts underneath the chassis for no reason, and still get full pay. Things have changed.
For anyone else in the world this would be a good thing. For an NCAA athlete, it's a BIG violation of the rules. The team can lose scholarships, bowl appearances, tv revenue... all sorts of good things.
And the beauty of the NCAA is that it's a "volunteer" organization that can pick and choose how it wants to enforce the rules. Typically teams in the South and Southwest get punished MUCH more severely for the same violation than would a team from the Northeast.
Maybe the players weren't paying United Auto Workers dues like they're supposed to for jobs like that. :-)
Yeah, sounds like what the politicians do all the time, doesn't it? Maybe we should get the NCAA to perform oversight on our Senators and Representatives.
Because if you are SMU, it will get you the death penalty. The NCAA would never do that to Oklahoma, but there are probably folks there who would love to come down on the school for its role in breaking the NCAA TV monopoly, and thus the program can't engage in blatant violation of the rules as can some of the programs.