The Lions' Pride

Excerpt:

"On Monday, an external review stated that the NCAA's enforcement arm "acted contrary to internal protocols, legal counsel and the membership's understanding about the limits of its investigative powers"

Wow-----
-- Many of the charges brought forth are based on the word of a man who made a fortune by lying. The NCAA enforcement staff acknowledged to the University that if Nevin Shapiro, a convicted con man, said something more than once, it considered the allegation "corroborated"—an argument which is both ludicrous and counter to legal practice.

-- The NCAA enforcement staff failed, even after repeated requests, to interview many essential witnesses of great integrity who could have provided first-hand testimony, including, unbelievably, Paul Dee, who has since passed away, but who served as Miami Athletic Director during many of the years that violations were alleged to have occurred. How could a supposedly thorough and fair investigation not even include the Director of Athletics?

Let me be clear again: for any rule violation—substantiated and proven with facts—that the University, its employees, or student-athletes committed, we have been and should be held accountable.

She is pretty awesome. Talking about being diligent, presenting an honest case for the university with advice from counsel, taking time to respond, but not backing down from the junkyard bully. And having the backbone to call the NCAA out for their garbage and manipulation of the sensationalism of the media to try and validate their response.

This just makes me hate Erickson more.

WOW!!!!
I hope Erickson sees this and just throws himself in front of a cata bus.
No seriously... I mean that literally.

Wow, that sounds very similar to freeh's "investigation" tactics.. Not interviewing key witnesses, damaging leaks.. NCAA needs to go away, they are destroying reputable universities..

Penn State fans should never want to see the phrase Deathe Penalty again. We should be fighting to get that power removed from the NCAA. It was that power that painted PSU into the corner practically forcing dickrod to accept the sanctions.

As much as i hate Errickson for not fighting, I ask you what if Errickson called Emmerts bluff and they hammered us with the death penalty. That would have been a lot worse then what we got. Even with an appeal and an investigation what would have recruits and players done with a death penalty hanging over the program.

I hate the way things went down but the fact that the NCAA has this power to deal out the Death Penalty is the bigger problem.

With all due respect my friend, I disagree. Death Penalty shouldn't be completely taken off from the table. Yes, i can agree that the NCAA should only be given the power to give the DP in case of repeat offense (and when i say repeat, i mean that that respective university has repeated that violation over and over again, not just once or twice). Something like a strike three and your out!, kind of deal. If we dont have the DP in play, then what is stopping schools like The-U from doing this again and again? And whats even worse is that the ess-ee-see is probably doing more shady stuff, but you never see the NCAA doing nething to them, at worst a slap on the wrist. I am not exactly sure how you would enforce such a rule, but im sure people who are much smarter than me can figure this out in a fair manner. But to take threat of a DP completely off the table, IMHO, isnt wise. Just have a more fair way of enforcing it, where the NCAA cannot sidestep or bypass its own bylaws and threaten to use it to sanction an unsuspecting university........ waiit, where have i heard that before..

P.S - Something like this i guess:
Strike 1 = Reduction of some scholorships.
Strike 2 = Reduction of scholorships and bowl bans.
Strike 3 = Since you havent learnt a damn thing, the DP to you!

+1 for Dickrod!

I hate to cast stones, but the only corroboration necessary is that it happened at Miami. I would doubt it if these charges were at Michigan, UCLA, Texas, or even places like LSU or Bama. Miami and Oklahoma, though...

In all seriousness, though, this makes me absolutely sick. Rodney Erickson needs to be put out like a cigarette yesterday.

I honestly hope Miami gets nothing more. Did they cheat? Probably, but if the best the NCAA has is a convicted felon saying things twice about certain things, that's ludicrous and quite frankly insulting. Miami sat out two bowl games and the ACC title game on their own. The NCAA investigation lasted 2.5 years and ended with the word of a convicted felon and them investigating themselves. What a sham.

Punishment is time served and move on. After reading that release Miami is warning the NCAA that a lawsuit is coming if it's more than time served.