A good piece by Phillip Marshall. The truth about AU and NCAA So often in this day of instant information, perception truly does become viewed as reality. But the old saying notwithstanding, perception is not reality. The truth is reality. Phillip Marshall, Senior Editor, AuburnUndercover.comAnd here’s the truth about Auburn football recruiting and the NCAA: It has been more than 30 years since Auburn was found by the NCAA to have committed major violations in recruiting. The most famous Auburn infractions case in that time involved Eric Ramsey and his tapes. But that case had not one thing to do with recruiting. It revolved around booster Corkey Frost offering Ramsey steaks for big plays and assistant coach Larry Blakeney giving him $500. Ramsey certainly was not offered inducements to sign. His only Division I scholarship offer was from Auburn. Ramsey, who was married and had a child, went to Blakeney with his hand out, then tape recorded the conversation. He told Blakeney his baby was sick and that he did not have money to buy food. Blakeney, a good man, was set up. He gave Ramsey money to help. It was a charitable act that broke NCAA rules. It had not one thing to do with Auburn football. Ramsey was not that important as a player. Everything else of which Auburn was found guilty in that case was peripheral. For instance, Auburn was found guilty of having too many players on scholarship because some walk-ons who lived at Sewell Hall, the athletic dormitory, left without paying their bills. The case was about Ramsey. The penalty of a two-year postseason ban and a one-year ban from television was incredibly stiff for the charges. It resulted as much from Auburn’s lack of action as it did from the act itself. From the NCAA’s official report: “Had there been a commitment on the part of the athletics department staff to investigate possible violations of NCAA rules when they came to light, this case might never have occurred or it possibly would have been only a secondary violation.†Before the Ramsey case, the last time Auburn was found to have committed a major violation in recruiting football players was in 1980. So the notion that Auburn has dark history of football recruiting violations is just wrong. The 1957 and 1958 cases were full of holes and probably would not have stood up in today’s NCAA. Regardless, those cases were more than half a century ago and are wholly irrelevant to Auburn football today. The message board conspiracy theories that have been hatched in recent months are laughable. The sad thing is that so many seem to believe them when, in every case I’ve seen, it takes reading only a few paragraphs to know that, not only are the wild stories unlikely to be true, they couldn’t be true. I don’t know what, if anything, will be said on HBO’s special. I have no way of knowing what happens behind closed doors with recruiting at Auburn, Alabama or anywhere else. Conspiracy theories, snide comments by columnists, commentators and bloggers and dark, unproved tales about former coaches notwithstanding, Auburn’s football recruiting record with the NCAA has been clean for more than three decades. And no evidence has been produced to show that it is anything but clean today. That’s not perception. That’s truth.
You can't handle the truth
I can't handle long paragraphs.
I didnt write it or format it. It came to me via email and I copied and pasted from my phone. Get the fuck over it.
If you post it you are responsible. Unfuck yourself.
He's not the one with his twat in a wad over English 101.
No but it hurt my eyes to read so I blame him.
That's vinegar and water. I can't use that. I'm not Italian.
14 Replies
1625 Views