<p>Oh no, students "shopping" for classes weren't formally registered full-time, and were thus ineligible to play for teams during those three weeks!</p>
<p>On a more serious note: you can take the front page of the LA Times Sports section, spread it open face-up, and see the Caltech story on the back page right next to the front page stories about Penn State with the subhead "NCAA looking at school's ethics, institutional control; could impose sanctions". Let's wait and see how those sanctions are going to compare with Caltech's, shall we? :rolleyes:</p>
<p>“At Caltech, where the laws of physics are understood, the rules of the NCAA apparently proved elusive.” snarks the AP. I’m wondering if other schools with shopping periods are going to face similar sanctions. Could be a problem for Yale recruiting… :)</p>
<p>Penalties include “Public reprimand and censure”. ROTFLOL–has anyone from the NCAA ever BEEN to a Caltech basketball game? Could someone please mail them a copy of “Quantum Hoops”, the documentary about Caltech basketball? How much more public reprimand and censure could one possibly dish out to those student atheletes? ;)</p>
<p>To be fair, when I started preseason here last summer and the investigation was still in the hearing stage, the checks in place for academic eligibility were really sketch. That’s not to say that I don’t believe that any of us were not student-athletes or fulfilling our duties to put school first but we obviously were not taking any of the NCAA rules seriously and our lackadaisical nature probably wasn’t good…</p>
<p>Still, any of those problems have been cleared up; some of the guys on our baseball team couldn’t start practice this past season until they had finalized their schedules. Generally, the approach has always been to just fill your schedule with ‘filler units’ until the appropriate scheduling changes were made to allow for eligibility.</p>
<p>OK, reading the report there were real, honest-to-God violations. I don’t know why they even talked about the shopping-period violations, which really is the stupidest kind of technical foot-fault imaginable. But only 10 out of the 30 ineligible athletes were supposedly ineligible for that reason. </p>
<p>There were 12 kids who played while they were actually on academic probation, and 11 (including 3 on probation) who practiced or played while they were really, truly not taking a full-time class load. (For two of them, it wasn’t completely their fault, since a class they were taking was canceled by the university mid-quarter, but six others dropped classes voluntarily and ceased being full-time students, and three were apparently never registered full-time.) </p>
<p>More importantly, the school had absolutely no procedures in place to check on eligibility, or even to think about it. The athletic director did not have access to athletes’ records, and never requested information from the registrar. The registrar was not aware that information in that office was necessary to determine sports eligibility. The coaches did not know the eligibility standards, and did nothing to enforce them. Or even ask what they might be.</p>
<p>So, basically, the big problem was not the shopping period, it was total, utter disregard for the existence of any rules. The penalties are kind of funny in a Caltech context, but I can understand why the NCAA wanted to do something. Not to mention that it probably elevated the status of the Caltech Athletic Director from “punchline” to “someone whose phone call you had better return.”</p>
<p>As for Boise State . . . I imagine there are many, many ways to run afoul of NCAA rules “feeding recruits and giving them a place to sleep,” especially outside the official visit envelope. Like, for instance, who else was supposed to sleep wherever the football recruits were given to sleep, and how was she being compensated?</p>
<p>How is Caltech’s “shopping period” different from other schools? Does one not actually register until a few weeks into the term after finalizing one’s classes? In other schools, it is common practice to add and drop classes without penalty until the add and drop deadline a few weeks into the term, but one is a registered student from the beginning of the term.</p>
<p>JHS, thanks for pointing out that there’s a report posted with more details. </p>
<p>A friend who’s a Caltech alum points with pride to the university’s self-reporting of the violations. Given that, it’s a bit harsh to say that the problem “was total, utter disregard for the existence of any rules.” In some ways, it seems that the school regards its teams as more akin to “A” league intermural leagues. Better for all concerned that it get sorted, and a badge of pride of sorts for Caltech to be sanctioned.</p>
<p>I vote for wiping out the basketball record for last 15 years and allow them to compete against high schools while on probation.</p>
<p>OTOH, how can anyone be an athlete and take a full load at Caltech? It sounds like NCAA really wants Caltech to enforce academics which means they need to introduce a series of fluff seminars for people not taking a full load.</p>
<p>Suggested - TV 101 - find inaccuracies in theories floated by Big Bang Theory</p>
<p>So they forfeit how many victories? One? Two? Agree that it sounded like an Onion article when I read it in the WaPo. Suspect that NCAA sanctions will become a badge of pride at Caltech!</p>
<p>I saw in one article a claim the school will have to also pay a $5,000 fine.</p>
<p>This is at a school where we got new gloves for our intramural softball league for the first time in over five years (many of our old ones had the stitching coming out of the webbing so if you tried to catch a fly ball properly you’d lose an eye). In exchange our season had to be shortened from eight games to seven. This is a league where teams and games are umped, organized, and run entirely by students, staff, and faculty.</p>