Breaking: NCCA Opens Investigation of MSU Over Nassar
The New York Times is reporting that the NCAA has opened an investigation of MSU over the Nassar case. Probably inevitable, but huge news nonetheless.
They're coming after your athletic program. Maybe now Joel Ferguson will care.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/sports/michigan-state-ncaa-investiga…
January 23rd, 2018 at 10:31 PM ^
January 23rd, 2018 at 10:04 PM ^
January 23rd, 2018 at 10:07 PM ^
Of course, the NCAA is inept and tone-deaf.
But even if they weren't, what can they do? If they give the death penalty to the gymnastics program, nobody at MSU would care. The fan base would gladly give up their gymnastics program to save everything else. And the only people they'd be hurting would be the gymnasts - many of whom were seen by Nassar when he was the team doctor. So that's not a good option.
Unless they go after football and basketball, nobody will care. So here's what you do, NCAA: Go after football and basketball.
January 23rd, 2018 at 10:11 PM ^
No thank you -- we are finally emerging from the wilderness and MSU is about to be restored to its proper place in both sports. There's only one party responsible for MSU's blatant disregard for the safety of student athletes (excl. Simon, BoTs, AD, etc.) -- NICK SABAN
Make him pay!
January 23rd, 2018 at 10:26 PM ^
January 23rd, 2018 at 10:36 PM ^
January 24th, 2018 at 7:06 AM ^
January 24th, 2018 at 8:46 AM ^
whatever happened to ESPN's FOIA lawsuit against the school for the football and basketball programs? Now would be a good time for the ruling to come in that case and let the floodgates open up!
January 24th, 2018 at 10:12 AM ^
Any penalty that the NCAA would institute would have to be program-wide if it were going to have any teeth, which means that the NCAA will never entertain it because they are an empty shell of any organization whose only role is to keep the money tree blooming.
January 23rd, 2018 at 10:13 PM ^
January 23rd, 2018 at 10:39 PM ^
January 23rd, 2018 at 10:14 PM ^
January 23rd, 2018 at 10:23 PM ^
I don't have a lot of confidence in the NCAA returning with a meaningful punishment and a lasting lesson here, but hopefully this was in part inspired by Ferguson clowning them on the radio earlier today. A display of the NCAA going, "OH YEAH? REALLY? WE'LL SHOW YOU!" is at least amusing.
Hopefully, we're wrong and they do as they should - drop the bomb and get them for lack of institutional control....also, violations of whatever bylaws say "don't be a fucking jerk on top of it all".
January 23rd, 2018 at 10:24 PM ^
So the blind will be investigating the blind? Marvelous.
January 23rd, 2018 at 10:26 PM ^
January 23rd, 2018 at 10:40 PM ^
Meh. I mean, clearly stuff happened. The wellbeing of athletes was destroyed. I guess that's sort of the NCAA's job.
But this is mostly legal stuff. What "punishment" can they inflict here that fits the crime? I actually believe the severity of the PSU punishment was just because there must be a deterrent to the mentality that covering up serious crimes can protect an athletic program. It disappoints me that they have basically endured less of a down period than Michigan has for hiring a bad coach.
But it's not like there was a systematic effort to protect the competitive strength of the gymnastics team. MSU doesn't even care about sports that aren't football or basketball--Mark Hollis has proven that many times over, notably by keeping Tom Anastos behind the hockey bench for a couple of extra years.
There may be problems with the basketball or football programs, but those cannot be dealt with by an investigation into Nassar, and those programs will not and should not be punished for failures in other lanes of the athletic program.
And the NCAA is so toothless there is really nothing effective they can do anyway. Either MSU does this right or it doesn't get done.
January 23rd, 2018 at 11:03 PM ^
have completely laid waste to the 2012 idea that "the NCAA's punishment of PSU was necessary as a deterrent to future behavior." This MSU case is somehow the second (!!!!) case since then of University leaders getting involved in some sort of athletic-related cover-up.
I'm not saying PSU shouldn't have faced some sort of NCAA punishment in 2012. There were a number of other arguments for such. But the deterrence argument - it didn't work then and the NCAA would be foolish going down that road again here.
January 24th, 2018 at 7:32 AM ^
January 23rd, 2018 at 10:41 PM ^
January 23rd, 2018 at 11:13 PM ^
(1) big fine, $ going to various sexual abuse programs and (2) the placement of an on-campus Athletic Integrity Officer. Both were part of the PSU penalties. Both are penalties that are in theory constructive penalties, leading to a greater good in the longer-term.
Anything directly related to gymnastics, though? Completely pointless, IMO. They would be completely destructive penalties, creating nothing but collateral damage.
January 23rd, 2018 at 11:15 PM ^
MSU, Simon, Izzo etc.
Civil lawsuits are the hammer.
January 23rd, 2018 at 11:32 PM ^
January 23rd, 2018 at 11:42 PM ^
The most I could see the NCAA doing is fining the MSU's Athletic Department. PSU did get a $60 million fine for their scandal, the only part of PSU's sanctions that weren't reduced. Yet another reminder, NCAA only cares about them dolla bills yall.
January 24th, 2018 at 12:22 AM ^
January 24th, 2018 at 9:06 AM ^
January 24th, 2018 at 12:25 AM ^
I think it's important that the NCAA and others get involved here because the vast extent of suffering and pain can not be washed over or ignored. These young women and girls suffered and the adults in a position did not help or protect them. Systemic failure to do the right thing.
I admire the young women's courage to speak out not only against Nasser but also against the 'turning away' of adults. It's hard to get my mind around the fact that this went on for 20 years and that at multiple points along that time continuum, there were adults in positions with opportunities to do something about Nasser. Fundamentally, students and athletes should feel safe, welcome and valued. Nothing was done to help. The horror continued and continued.
I just don't understand how Simon looks in the mirror and does not have a real conversation with herself about this series of events. How does she go to work everday and not feel shame or guilt? How can she justify not resigning? Since she is not willing to do the right thing, I am glad that others are marshalling their efforts to do something toward removing her. Michigan State deserves better from it's leader and trustees.
January 24th, 2018 at 9:16 AM ^
of the systemic failures.
One of my favorite jobs ever was working with an EMS department at a hospital. The medics weren't paid a ton of money. The department didn't get a great deal of funding, and most of their funding was tied up in rolling stock and equipment. I was working on their IT side and some of the stuff we had to do to make it work was comical. That said...
It was one of the healthiest organizations I've ever been apart of. It was kind of quasi-military in a sense, but it seemed like when it came to patient care the medics were just awesome. They had no problem bringing up what they thought as care issues to their superiors. And they would be heard. If someone screwed up (quite possible in an emergency medical situation, with often incomplete data) there would be a review. But it wasn't a witch hunt. A) The recongized the medic has their own trauma to deal with if the patient got hurt. B) They would go over everything step by step as a learning experience to pass that knowledge on. For the most part politics was very low on the totem when it came to patient care.
I was dumbfounded. I'd never been part of a workplace like that.
Where I'm going with this is I wonder had this type of attitude been apart of USG and MSU. What if someone brought this to Klages and had a real hearing? If someone screwed up, and said 'Whoa, last time someone said something, I didn't bring it high enough' might they have been more empowered to go to their bosses and say 'I screwed up here, but I want to rectify it now' if they knew their bosses would say 'Okay. A) Lets take care of the problem, and B) Lets see where you went wrong so we can fix it and not have it happen again.'
We utterly failed these girls. This is a tragedy. I'm just trying to figure out how to fix it for the future.
January 24th, 2018 at 10:22 AM ^
However, as we've heard in the impact statements, Klages, Geddert and the Karolyi's were protecting Nassar for the sake of their own careers and notoriety. Things reported to them ended right there and never went up any kind of chain of command.
Those four belong in jail right beside Nassar.
How is it that USAG (who has lost at least four major sponsors) has jettisoned three board members and John Geddert as a coach, the Karolyi ranch has been removed as the US gymnastics trainning facility and thusly been shut down and put out of business, yet we still have MSU going full steam ahead with everyone intact except Klages who was allowed to retire without punishment last year? How is that even possible?
The entire MSU BoT, Simon and Hollis and any associated gymnastics coaches/trainers (those named in the survivor impact statements) should be removed immediately and the gymnastics program shut down until a thorough, independent review of that program has been completed.
January 24th, 2018 at 11:39 AM ^
The people currently responsible should be prosecuted.
January 24th, 2018 at 12:30 AM ^
Multiple programs were affected here.
I wonder if this brings to light some of the other shady activities that were rumored that could lead to additional penalties.
January 24th, 2018 at 2:43 AM ^
January 24th, 2018 at 7:48 AM ^
January 24th, 2018 at 8:33 AM ^
However the NCAA can piggy back off of the FBI investigation and get full cooperation from the FBI to get all the information it needs... they don't need to talk to MSU in this case to get information so their lack of subpoena power might be moot.
EDIT: meant as a response to a comment, but the general message still stands I guess.
January 24th, 2018 at 9:13 AM ^
Given the timing this is almost certainly a reaction to Joel Ferguson calling the NCAA incompetent and more or less daring them to investigate. This was going to happen sooner or later anyways, although the NCAA probably would have let the AG investigation and civil suits play out first as a means of gathering "free" information. The NCAA will not rush this, so don't hold your breath waiting for punishment in the next couple years.
All that being said, I'm not sure why many on this board think the NCAA can't or won't hand out a severe punishment. By the time they levy any punishment all the current gymnasts will have graduated or transferred. Also this investigation will likely try to follow any leads that allow them to look at the entire athletic department (because revenue), not just gymnastics. If the NCAA handed out a $60 million fine to Penn St., there's no reason at this point to believe this one will be less - revenue sport or not.
Also, the NCAA lacking subpoena power may end up being more or less irrelevant in this one as MSU staffers are compelled to cooperate, and there is an army of angry women who want to talk and want MSU to burn. Yes, the NCAA may be the least of MSU's worries, but they should be worried about the NCAA.
January 24th, 2018 at 10:07 AM ^
Based on their history, the NCAA should finish their investigation and announce their wrist slap in about.....2024.
January 24th, 2018 at 11:57 AM ^
That would be harsher than what I expect.
January 24th, 2018 at 10:23 AM ^
January 24th, 2018 at 10:25 AM ^
SMU is the only school that I can think of that got the Death Penalty. Am I right in that? That was for money. Money that belonged to the NCAA.
Through this investigation I hope they find things that will affect the BB and FB programs. The Pride comes before the Fall as They say.
January 24th, 2018 at 11:13 AM ^
back in the 1970s. They did some absolutely outrageous stuff. Coaches were forging players' high school transcripts, along with paying surrogates to take entrance exams. The NCAA was seriously considering booting them from the organization as a whole.
Tulane hoops very likely would have gotten the death penalty back in the late 1980s --- however, the school shut down the program on their own before the NCAA took any action.
January 24th, 2018 at 11:20 AM ^
(1) Kentucky basketball, 1952-53 season.
(2) Southwestern Louisiana [now Louisiana-Lafayette] basketball, 1973-74 and 1974-75 seasons.
(3) Southern Methodist University football, 1987 season.
(4) Morehouse College men's soccer [Division II], 2004 and 2005 seasons.
(5) MacMurray College men's tennis [Division III], 2005-06 and 2006-07 seaons.
The Morehouse College case was weird; they signed a couple of Nigerians who couldn't prove they had ever attended high school, and who had played professional soccer. They played without actually enrolling in the school. But the bizarre part is that when the NCAA first contacted the Morehouse AD about an investigation of the soccer team, they told the NCAA that Morehouse didn't have men's soccer. Needless to say, that pretty much meets the definition of "Lack of Institutional Control."
In the MacMurray case, the tennis coach had been getting grant money to several foreign players (D3 is a non-scholarship level). The coach then told NCAA investigators that the NCAA rules were "a joke" and referred to his getting money for the players as his "scheme." Let's just say that didn't really help his cause.
The other 3 cases were pretty much straight-up amateurism violations--fans paying players with the full knowledge of the Athletic Department or coaching staff, although the SWLA violations also involved academic fraud.
January 24th, 2018 at 1:18 PM ^
Just because of their insenstivity and inaction, MSU bettter be prepared for millions of dollars in law suit penalties to victims. I hope that insurance does not cover it because of gross, criminal indifference.In most states, gross negligence by people in power, including trustees, can open them to being personally sued for their actions.
January 24th, 2018 at 3:53 PM ^
just read an article about this (and the report) and the amazing part is that they are required to self report and they have yet to do so. I mean isn't this is a slam dunk self report? How incompetent is this organization