Does Alabama president care one Witt about integrity?Friday, June 12, 2009 The last thing Robert Witt wants to do at a press conference is answer questions, even on a day when the integrity of his institution has been called into question. Again. Instead, the president of the University of Arrogance chose merely to read a statement Thursday afternoon. In those 256 words, he made a statement that helps explain why his school leads the Football Bowl Subdivision with four major infractions cases in the last 14 years. Through multiple presidents, athletics directors, coaches, administrators, student-athletes, boosters and sports. Alabama has what Nick Saban might call a cultural problem. It's a culture that demands doing the right thing - but only after you've been caught doing the wrong thing. Again. The names and faces change. The attitude never seems to adjust. Witt put the latest public face on the problem Thursday when he said he was disappointed. Not in the 201 different student-athletes who violated textbook distribution policies and thus broke NCAA rules. Not in the athletic department administrators who failed to notice a 30 percent spike in textbook charges over a two-year period and thus failed to monitor that program. Not in an athletic department that will have spent 16½ out of 19 years in the NCAA's repeat-violator window, from June 3, 1995, through Jan. 31, 2007, and from June 11, 2009, through June 10, 2014.
NCAA's sanctions shock former Alabama football playersPosted by mperrin June 12, 2009 05:00AMSeveral former University of Alabama football players who were not among the seven violators in the textbook case said Thursday they were shocked that the NCAA issued sanctions that clouded their accomplishments, especially because the guilty parties had already been punished by the university.The NCAA penalties issued Thursday included the Alabama football team vacating any wins in the 2005, 2006 and 2007 seasons in which the offending players participated.John Parker Wilson, an Atlanta Falcons free agent who was Alabama's starting quarterback in the 2006 and 2007 seasons, was getting bits and pieces of the NCAA sanctions throughout the day Thursday and didn't like what he was hearing."The players involved sat out four games," he said. "I don't know why that wasn't enough."Like Wilson, former standout lineman Andre Smith, who played in 2006 and 2007, was surprised by the vacated wins. He also noted the suspensions given to five players during the 2007 season."They got suspended," Smith said Thursday at Cincinnati Bengals camp. "How can they (the NCAA) justify it? Four games (of suspensions) isn't enough?"Tim Castille, who is heading into his third year as a fullback with the Arizona Cardinals, also didn't like hearing that the NCAA was vacating wins from when he played at Alabama, but he said it was not a big deal."We really didn't win anything significant in those years," he said. "We didn't reach the goals that we set. If we'd won a few SEC or national championships during that time and they were taking them away, it would be different."Castille said his biggest surprise Thursday was learning that so many athletes from so many sports were involved. He said he wonders where he was during that time."I didn't have a clue any of that was going on," he said.Former Alabama head coach Mike Shula, who coached Alabama in 2005 and 2006 as the textbook scandal unfolded, was reached through the Jacksonville Jaguars, for whom he is a quarterbacks coach. He declined to comment.Current Alabama coach Nick Saban was hosting his Nick's Kids charity golf tournament at Old Overton on Thursday. Saban wouldn't address specifics about the penalties, but said he is glad the case is ending."We're always happy to move on and we're looking forward to the future and are excited about the things we can accomplish," Saban said. "I don't think this is going to affect the vision of the program or the student-athletes in the program or that we're recruiting."Saban said he felt confident Alabama addressed the matter the right way."First of all, I think the University of Alabama -- Dr. (Robert) Witt and (Athletics Director) Mal Moore -- did a great job of demonstrating institutional integrity in the way this was handled internally."Efforts to reach the head coaches of other sports that will have to vacate records -- men's tennis and men's and women's track and field -- were unsuccessful.In prepared statements released by the university, men's tennis coach Billy Pate, women's track coach Sandy Fowler and men's track coach Harvey Glance all referred to lessons learned."I am just glad this is over with and we can move forward to concentrate on the business of improving our program," Glance said. "We have always worked within the rules and I value what we have learned through this process."Said Pate, "I think the moral of the story is a small thing can become a big thing in a serious manner. It reminds us that we're under a microscope here. A mistake was made that might have seemed minor at the time, but it turned out to have serious consequences. There's always a lesson to be learned with things like this. Student-athletes are in the public eye and everything they do can have consequences."
...four major infractions cases in the last 14 years.
...an athletic department that will have spent 16½ out of 19 years in the NCAA's repeat-violator window.
Man, that has to be a record.
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