Poor little Bowden, not! I'm hope they take all 14 from him, the pathetic hypocrit!
<a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4299581" target="_blank">
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4299581</a>
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<h2>Florida State says penalty is unfair</h2>
</div>
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Florida State says it's
unfair to take wins off the individual records of football coach Bobby
Bowden and other coaches and athletes who had no role in an academic
cheating scandal.
In an appeal to the NCAA on Wednesday, the
university argued that a proposal to strip the school, its coaches and
athletes of victories in several sports is too harsh and should be
reversed.
If not, the penalty would cost Bowden up to 14 wins.
Taking that many victories off his personal record would give Bowden
little chance of catching Penn State's Joe Paterno in their race to be
major college football's winningest coach. Paterno has 383 wins, just
one more than Bowden, who is entering his 34th season at Florida State.
The
appeal cites Florida State's cooperation with the NCAA and self-imposed
penalties, including the loss of athletic scholarships and the
suspensions of those who cheated on an online music history test.
Florida
State's backup argument is that even if wins should be stripped from
the school's record, the individual records of innocent coaches and
athletes should not be docked. Under that scenario, Florida State would
still lose its 1997 national championship in track and field and the
football team would lose victories, but Bowden would not.
The 20-page appeal says it serves no valid
purpose to rewrite the win-loss records of a coach or a baseball or
softball pitcher who did not cheat because of violations committed by
others. It also notes that athletes whose accomplishments are measured
by other factors such as touchdowns or rushing yards would not be
punished.
"The NCAA should protect -- and not penalize -- those
who play by the rules," Florida State's legal team, headed by William
E. Williams, wrote in the appeal.
The NCCA's Infractions
Committee in March added the loss of wins to the penalties Florida
State imposed on itself last year. The case next goes to an infractions
appeal committee, which is expected to hold a hearing later this year.
The university issued a statement saying there would be no comment on the appeal.
Florida
State itself reported the violations to the NCAA, which then found 61
Seminoles athletes had cheated on the test in 2006-07 or received
improper help from staffers who provided answers or typed papers for
them.
The NCAA's Infractions Committee decided that "vacating,"
or giving up wins -- technically not forfeits because opponents'
records would remain unchanged -- was justified because "what happened
in that course was simply a symptom of a much larger disease -- a
systemic, 'environmental' problem among a large group of
student-athletes and three staff members."
The appeal says there's no evidence to support that conclusion.
"This
is mere hyperbole," the lawyers wrote. "It is unquestioned that
virtually all of the violations at issue are associated with a single,
online music course."
If academic fraud have been pandemic, there
would have been violations in other courses, but that didn't happen,
the university argues.
The appeal traces the cheating to academic
adviser Brenda Monk's zeal in helping student-athletes with learning
disabilities and her erroneous belief the music test was an "open-book
exam." As soon as she realized her mistake, she reported it, the appeal
says.
Florida State also argues the infractions committee broke
precedent by failing to explain what weight it gave to the university's
cooperation and self-imposed sanctions, citing prior cases involving
Alabama State, Howard, Alabama, Kentucky and Oklahoma.
That
failure will discourage other schools from cooperating in the future
and undermines the legitimacy of the penalties, the appeal states.
"It
also compels reversal," the lawyers wrote. "If the committee in fact
weighed those factors, it did so in a black box that denies the
university and this committee a meaningful opportunity to review the
appropriateness of its logic and its decision."
Finally, Florida
State argues it never would have entered an agreement with NCAA
staffers for the self-imposed penalties if officials had known the
school would also lose wins.
Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press
