More than two years ago, Ohio Northern placed Tom Kaczkowski on administrative leave and named Stacey Hairston interim coach. Eventually, Kaczkowski was fired.
The violations were significant and were undisguised. The team had held extra positional practices over the summer and camp started one week earlier than allowed. Under the coaching change, Ohio Northern suffered and a team that was in the preseason Top 10 finished 4-6.
The coaches in question are gone. The players who benefitted from the extra contact are pretty much gone as well, unless some of that year’s rising sophomores who participated are now seniors. There have been a lot of repercussions already that this program has had to deal with. Other schools have been able to use Ohio Northern’s admission and self-imposed penalties against it in recruiting.
The long time frame goes contrary to the committee’s own documentation of the enforcement process. This from the committee’s FAQ:
The enforcement process is designed to provide a timely, fair and equitable resolution of infractions cases in order to uphold the high standards set for NCAA member institutions, their student-athletes, coaches and athletic administrators in the conduct of intercollegiate athletics.
I suppose fair and equitable is debatable here, though I personally do not believe the punishment fits the crime. Timely resolution, however, is lacking. In its lack of timeliness, the committee has gone contrary to its mission:
It is the mission of the NCAA enforcement program to reduce violations of NCAA legislation and impose appropriate penalties if violations occurred. The program is committed to the fairness of procedures and the timely and equitable resolution of infractions cases. The achievement of these objectives is essential to the conduct of a viable and effective enforcement program. Further, an important consideration in imposing penalties is to provide fairness to uninvolved student-athletes, coaches, administrators, competitors and other institutions.
It shouldn’t take this long. The Division I committee just reported three weeks ago about violations that happened in 2004. Even the case against Baylor men’s basketball, a complex case with significant punishment (the elimination of the program’s non-conference schedule, among others), appears to have taken only nine months.
This punishment should have been imposed in 2003, or 2004 at the latest. One can only hope that the appeals committee can find an alternate punishment that doesn’t punish coaches and players who weren’t in the program when the violations were committed.