Sorry Michigan, you deserve more

According to University of Michigan Athletic Director Bill Martin, his school has suffered enough.

Apparently, all this media attention to the “Fib Five” scandal has hurt the school the way Richard Jewell was hurt in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic bomb explosion. Just hearing “Michigan” dragged through the mud has caused such pain and suffering, it’s just not necessary to sanction heavily.

Last week, before the NCAA could drop the hammer itself, Martin announced Michigan’s self-imposed “penalties”: taking down the 1992 & 1993 Final Four banners, returning money received from NCAA tournament trips, and a ban on the postseason this year.

With this announcement we are once again reminded why criminals shouldn’t be allowed to pick their punishment. Michigan, like every school that does this, chose penalties that might look painful to some but are meant to pierce the skin as little as possible, and we can only hope the NCAA Infractions Committee keeps doing the right thing and gives UM another swift snap with a wet towel.

The returning of revenue is a nice gesture, but by big-time college sports standards nowadays $450,000 is peanuts. Buys you a coordinator from the Oklahoma Sooners football team. Maybe. Does anyone think this is really going to cripple an athletic program as big as Michigan’s?

Taking down banners and erasing records? Ahh, yes, that’s nice. That really helps the 1992 East Tennessee State team or the 1993 Coastal Carolina team. They both lost to Michigan in the NCAA Tournament.

Bet they feel real good about Michigan’s records being erased, almost as good as if they’d beaten them, huh? Makes one wonder, does John Chaney now get credit for a much-deserved Final Four appearance for his 1993 Temple team that lost in the West Region final to UM?

The postseason ban is nothing more than declining an invitation to the 2003 NIT, because that was the only tournament Michigan had a chance at this year. Minnesota did this same thing a few years ago when, knowing it wasn’t going to be any good, it declared itself ineligible for the postseason.

Neither school would do so for a second season, because by then it’s hoped the team is ready to breakthrough. Which makes this a downright toothless penalty.

Judging by recent precedent, there’s only two truly just things the NCAA can do: take away scholarships and tack on to the postseason ban. And it should do both. And many will complain.

We’ve heard all the crying already: “How can you penalize these kids for something they’ve had nothing to do with?” Well, the answer is because something has to be done, and nobody has come up with anything better.

Most everybody that whines about lost opportunities for the current innocents never can present a better idea of what to do instead. Take away scholarships? Isn’t that punishing innocent youths too by taking away their opportunity to play and go to school at Michigan?

What is a better idea? Fire athletic department officials? Take away money? Limit recruiting contact? These are all speed bumps; it’s like going after the al-Qaeda with paintball guns-it’ll sting, but only for a little bit.

Just do nothing? Apparently that’s how some seem to feel. Yet these same people bawl away when a coach is fired too soon for doing things “the right way.” If you’re not going to punish the violators with a punishment that stings, what’s the point of college sports? Any sports?

The most just punishment of an offending school would start with taking away a year of postseason for every one they scummed up by competing illegally. That would be four years for Michigan. Innocent people would be hurt by this, but they already were before too.

What about all the kids who idolized the Fab Five? Or the teams whose seasons were ended by Michigan in the postseason? All the schools that competed against Michigan and lost. There’s no getting that back; at least the current players would have an escape route to transfer and not have to sit out.

I would advocate not cutting scholarships, just having the NCAA mandate giving them to actual students instead of athletes. That way the opportunity to go to school is still there for somebody, hopefully someone a little more honest than the Webber, et al. That would never happen, though, so scholarship cuts are still necessary.

Any money returned for advancing in the NCAA Tournament should be returned to the schools who Michigan beat. That way, those schools at least get some benefit from this ordeal other than a chuckle and a record-book modification.

Are these tough conditions? Absolutely. Would innocent people pay? Sure. But that’s the cost of competing in the college athletics arms race.

Tom Yeager and the NCAA Infractions Committee has done a superb job of making people pay for blatant cheating lately, after years of going light on schools. They’ll never catch all the cheating; heck, they’ll probably never catch much of it. But at least they’re trying.

Now is no time to fall back into the rut of accepting self-serving penalties.