ShareThisThe NCAA says Bobby Bowden played no role whatsoever in the academic cheating scandal that involved 61 Florida State University athletes in 10 sports from the fall of 2006 through the summer of 2007.
Didn't arrange it.
Didn't endorse it.
Didn't even know about it.
So why does the NCAA, which is supposed to be fair and just, want to reach into the old coach's heart and rip out 14 of his 382 wins? Better yet: Why, exactly, is Bowden the only one being punished? Fact is, most FSU folks don't really care what happens to the track teams, or swimming teams, or baseball and softball teams, or even the basketball teams.
Not the way they care about their football team.
Not the way they care about what happens to Bowden and his garnet-and-gold legacy, which he built by putting FSU on the college football map and taking the Seminoles to unprecedented heights.
That's why you've heard no complaints from FSU president T.K. Wetherell and athletic director Randy Spetman about the NCAA-imposed, department-wide probation or scholarship reductions in the sports in which the guilty athletes participated.
That's also why FSU, which is expected to file an appeal this week, will challenge only the NCAA's wrongheaded decision to vacate victories in any games in which the guilty athletes played.
"We just don't understand the sanction to vacate all wins . . .," Wetherell said in a statement.
What he meant was: "We just don't understand the sanction to vacate all football wins . . ."
True, if the sanctions stand, the FSU men's track-and-field team will be stripped of its 2007 national championship - which, I'm sure, would be a blow to those athletes.
But to most FSU fans? Especially longtime FSU fans? They're far more concerned with Bowden's pursuit of Penn State's Joe Paterno, whose 383 wins put him one up on the Seminoles chief in their race to retire as the college game's all-time winningest coach.
And if the appeal fails, if the NCAA vacates 14 of FSU's football victories in 2006 and 2007, Bowden, at age 79, will have no real chance to surpass his Pennsylvania peer.
Instead, this scandal will permanently stain Bowden's reputation. Any future biography will be forced to include an explanation of the wins that were taken away. When he's gone, this sad episode will become part of who he was.
The NCAA, unless overcome by a sudden rush of good sense, has made sure of that. But why punish Bowden, who, by any measure, has been hit hardest by the sanctions? He's not the one who cheated.
Maybe, as the CEO of the football program, he should've known what was happening. But how? This scandal went way beyond the football team, beyond the athletic department. Three university-paid academic advisers and as many as 200 students - including the 61 athletes, 25 football players - were involved in the scheme to cheat in online courses.
FSU officials uncovered the scandal, fired the advisers, immediately suspended the cheaters and cooperated fully with the NCAA's investigation. They expected the penalties to be severe, to include probation and scholarship cuts.
But vacating 14 football victories that are essentially meaningless to everyone except Bowden? What's the point? What does it accomplish, other than needlessly diminishing a once-great coach? The NCAA was right to come down hard on FSU. Academic fraud should be dealt with harshly. All schools should embrace a zero-tolerance policy on cheating.
But punish only the guilty.
We might never know the names of the football players who cheated, but unless the NCAA reconsiders, we'll always remember the 14 wins Bowden lost.
He's taking the hit because 25 of his players dishonored him. They should be ashamed of themselves.
So should the NCAA.
(Ray McNulty is sports columnist for Scripps Treasure Coast (Fla.) Newspapers, The Stuart News, Fort Pierce Tribune and Vero Beach Press Journal. E-mail him at ray.mcnulty(at)scripps.com. On the Web at www.tcpalm.com.)
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