Can someone explain to me why that's okay, but raising ticket prices by 10% for the people most interested in Tennessee football is a bridge too far?
Compared to the chicanery ut vols sports has gotten away with for decades upon decades with nothing more than slaps on the wrist and show-cause bans against already fired coaches?
Their baseball team went from 98 total home runs a few seasons ago to 184? Not without tampered bats and "who knows what else."
I’m here for sec conspiracy hour.
This is a direct quote from the NCAA about that football program:
Head coach responsibility
Due to the former head coach's direct involvement in intentionally providing impermissible inducements and benefits to prospects, student-athletes and their families, he violated head coach responsibility rules. Additionally, he failed to monitor his staff when at least a dozen members of the football staff committed more than 200 violations of NCAA rules over a two-year period and did not self-report any of those violations.
"During the head coach's tenure, he and other members of his staff acted with general and blatant disregard for rules compliance," the panel said.
The panel also was troubled by a former staff member who stated that she failed to report violations because she feared retaliation and backlash, which "spotlights the toxic culture that existed under the head coach's leadership."
Unethical conduct
Because coaches and recruiting staff members knowingly violated NCAA rules pertaining to recruiting, official and unofficial visits, inducements and impermissible benefits, involved individuals violated NCAA ethical conduct rules.
Additional unethical conduct violations occurred when the former director of recruiting influenced a prospect's mother to provide false or misleading information during the school's investigation, and when the former director of recruiting and assistant coaches 1 and 2 failed to cooperate with the investigation when they provided false or misleading information during the investigation.
After their separations from Tennessee, the former head coach, director of recruiting, recruiting assistant and assistant coach 1 also violated ethical conduct rules when they provided false or misleading information to the school and NCAA enforcement staff.
Failure to monitor
The panel acknowledged in its decision that Tennessee has dedicated significant financial and personnel resources to its compliance program, which was led by a highly respected individual. The panel also acknowledged that the coaches and other football staff in this case intentionally worked to conceal their conduct from compliance staff.
However, the panel determined that despite the compliance department's efforts, the scope and egregiousness of the violations in this case and the department's failure to detect the violations indicate that Tennessee failed to monitor the football program.
"The failure at Tennessee was cultural," the panel said. "It was a failure of all stakeholders to embrace the shared responsibility of monitoring and compliance and to create a culture where those responsibilities were prioritized and rewarded. This cannot simply be the responsibility of the compliance staff."