Secondary violations: Punishment should fit crime

[News Bot]

During a college sports roundtable that aired on ESPN, former Florida coach Urban Meyer proposed that “willful” secondary violations should result in a coach being suspended for at least one game.
It was a strong statement. And it made me think to look back to the four secondary violations that the Florida football program committed under Meyer’s leadership between 2009 and 2010.
One violation involved impermissible protective gear, a minor offense. But three involved posting messages on a recruits Facebook page, and one was reported by a whistle-blower from a rival SEC school. Those three violations provided direct recruiting advantages to Florida.
Of course, Florida could have appealed whether those mistakes were “willful.” But under Meyer’s proposal. it would have resulted in his suspension of at least one game, possibly more.
In basketball, under Meyer’s proposal, Florida coach Billy Donovan would have been suspended at least once for allowing recruits to speak to former players on the phone. An unnamed assistant on Donovan’s staff also would have been suspended for the “bump rule” which involves having contact with a recruit during the July evaluation non-contact period.
UF compliance director Jamie McCloskey even admitted in an article by the Sun’s Robbie Andreu that Florida probably led the SEC in secondary violations.
Bottom line, coaches are going to test the margins of the rulebook. Several college basketball coaches, including Donovan, have told me “sometimes, as coaches, we’re our own worst enemy.” To suggest that minor violations, including those that result in recruiting advantages, should result in coaching suspensions is a little harsh. Given the major scandals at Miami, Ohio State, North Carolina and Tennessee, the NCAA has more pressing matters to worry about.
What are your thoughts?

Source: GatorSports.com - Hoops Scoop

 

[DRU2012]

I will always hold Urban Meyer in high regard and fond memory for the six years he presided over our Gator Football program (well, FIVE of those six years, at any rate), during which he and his coaches brought us two National Championships and took the program to and set its standards at a new level--in our eyes and those of the whole college football world.
However, I am already getting sick of his pontificating revisionism, along with ESPN's shallow and transparent move to bestow some kind of untouchable, statesman-like status upon him . In this new-found "assumed infallibility", Meyer has made a number of pronouncements that are certainly debatable at best, and would have hand-tied and presumably infuriated him as the Gator coach just months ago. Surrounded by people whose JOB it is to constantly and unquestioningly tell themselves, each other and everyone they can reach how insightful and IMPORTANT his opinions are, it appears he is already a victim of that great error so common among self-absorbed media personalities: believing his own hype.
On the other hand, perhaps he has found his new "True Calling". Judging by that last season at UF he certainly seemed to have lost it as a Head Coach, at least the one of passion and vision who drove himself and everyone around him to heights they didn't know they had within them before. THIS Urban Meyer seems the "flip side" of that one--and he seems quite comfortable with the change. You have to be HUNGRY to fight for everything the way a Head Coach has to do. Without that hunger, that passion--OR the tight group of "men at arms" who were prepared to follow him into any battle, talented in their own right and loyal only to him; THEY'RE all well-along in their OWN careers by now--it just can't be the same. And "out there" you're only as good as your last season, the last big rivalry game. Urban Meyer may be both content and shrewd enough to recognize that he's made it to a good place, comfortable and "well-respected"; staying right where he is NOW is probably the SMART move.
Of course, there's the ego, and the challenge, "the call"...