The National Collegiate Athletic Association has ordered Florida State University to forfeit wins in 10 sports in response to an academic-cheating scandal involving 61 athletes who competed while ineligible in 2006 and 2007.
The NCAA has also placed Florida State on probation for four years and stripped the university of scholarships in the 10 sports, according to a report released this afternoon by the NCAA’s Division I Committee on Infractions.
According to the report, three staff members in the university’s Athletics Academic Support Services department “gave improper assistance resulting in academic fraud” to the 61 athletes. A large number of the violations were committed in an online music course. One of the three staff members had typed portions of at least three athletes’ papers.
“This case was extremely serious because of the large number of student-athletes involved and the fact that academic fraud is considered by the committee to be among the most egregious of NCAA infractions,” the report reads.
The sports — football, baseball, softball, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s swimming, men’s and women’s track and field, and men’s golf — all face scholarship restrictions, including six fewer in football and two fewer in men’s basketball.
The 61 athletes have already had to sit out 30 percent of their playing schedules as punishment.
The forfeiture of wins could hurt football coach Bobby Bowden’s pursuit of the all-time record for major-college football coaching victories. (He has 382 career wins, one behind Penn State coach Joe Paterno.) The Seminoles coach must forfeit all wins during which ineligible students competed in 2006 and 2007. It is not clear how many games that might be.
Florida State said it would consider appealing the NCAA’s order to forfeit wins, saying it never knowingly played ineligible athletes and followed eligibility guidelines agreed to by the NCAA.
“We just don’t understand the sanction to vacate all wins in athletics contests in which ineligible student-athletes competed because we did not allow anyone who we knew was ineligible to compete,” Florida State President T.K. Wetherell said in a written statement. “Our position throughout the inquiry was that as soon as we knew of a problem, they didn’t play.” —David Shieh
