Frank Haith & Show-Cause Penalty Trends

[KingOtis]

While no decision has been made, a lot of people around here are concerned that Mizzou coach Frank Haith is going to be hit with a show-cause penalty, which will cost him his job and any other college coaching gigs for at least a few years. The prevailing thought seems to be, "How is it that John Calipari is still coaching while Haith could be penalized over a couple of airline tickets?"

I decided to do a little digging and what I found is a little disturbing. Here's the list of basketball coaches who were hit with show-cause penalties over the last 25 years or so:

Bob Wade - Maryland
Todd Bozeman - California
Clem Haskins - Minnesota
Dave Bliss - Baylor
Kelvin Sampson - Indiana
Rob Senderoff - Indiana (Sampson assistant)
Neil McCarthy - New Mexico State
Bruce Pearl - Tennessee
Brad Greenberg - Radford

Anything stand out to you? Let's look at the list another way:

Bob Wade - Black
Todd Bozeman - Black
Clem Haskins - Black
Dave Bliss - White
Kelvin Sampson - Native American
Rob Senderoff - Jewish
Neil McCarthy - White
Bruce Pearl - Jewish
Brad Greenberg - Jewish

Haith is also black. Accuse me of playing the race card all you want, but the facts are the facts. The number of minorities who have been hit with these penalties is disproportionate. Bliss had to penalized. What happened at Baylor and the way he tried to cover it up was beyond reprehensible. McCarthy is the only other white, non-Jewish coach on the list, but he was penalized back in 1997 and he was at a small school.

We can extend the list to football, where - surprisingly - show-cause penalties are more rare. There are three recent cases: Jim Tressel, Todd McNair and John Blake. Both McNair and Blake are black.

Now Tressel getting penalized was a pretty big deal, but as I understand it, he was given multiple opportunities to come clean and failed to do so. Contrast that with Haith, whom the NCAA believes is lying despite the fact that they have no proof. I'm going to consider Tressel an exception to the rule, and you have to wonder what would have happened had he told the truth after his second or third chance.

I'm not saying these minority coaches were innocent. I'll concede that they were all guilty of wrongdoing, including Haith. But considering the magnitude of the transgressions in some of these cases, and given that neither Calipari nor Pete Carroll was ever penalized (doesn't matter that Carroll was with the Seahawks, Blake was unemployed when he received his show-cause), something is fishy here.

 

[SteveC]

Bob Wade - Maryland
Todd Bozeman - California
Clem Haskins - Minnesota
Dave Bliss - Baylor
Kelvin Sampson - Indiana
Rob Senderoff - Indiana (Sampson assistant)
Neil McCarthy - New Mexico State
Bruce Pearl - Tennessee
Brad Greenberg - Radford

Anything stand out to you? Let's look at the list another way:

Bob Wade - Black
Todd Bozeman - Black
Clem Haskins - Black
Dave Bliss - White
Kelvin Sampson - Native American
Rob Senderoff - Jewish
Neil McCarthy - White
Bruce Pearl - Jewish
Brad Greenberg - Jewish

.

Does Jewish fit in with Caucasian, Native American and African American? I tried googling "is jewish a race?"... and google can't decide.

 

[KingOtis]

Not a race, but still a minority. There's even a Jewish Coaches Association (Bernie Fine was a founder).

 

[Tobias Funke]

Not disagreeing with your findings, or theory for that matter just asking the question. How many of these coaches actually broke the rules? I ask because to have only 9 people in 25 years leads to the fact that it is either pretty hard to identify the people who break the rules, or these people had the most blatant and easy to prove disgressions. I dont personally know the details of many of these so it is really just a question.

 

[KingOtis]

Not disagreeing with your findings, or theory for that matter just asking the question. How many of these coaches actually broke the rules? I ask because to have only 9 people in 25 years leads to the fact that it is either pretty hard to identify the people who break the rules, or these people had the most blatant and easy to prove disgressions. I dont personally know the details of many of these so it is really just a question.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show-cause_penalty#Men.27s_Basketball

Calipari has had Final Four appearances vacated at UMass and Memphis, yet somehow he's never been penalized by the NCAA. How is that possible? How does an investigation into Nerlens Noel turn up nothing, unless it was just a token investigation? Another Missouri head coach, Quin Snyder, was never penalized for his violations.

In my opinion, this has to do with whom the NCAA is willing to punish and with whom they're willing to look the other way.