Comments:

1.  dave frey said:

   posted on October 20, 2004 8:28 PM — 66.186.252.13 — link — abuse?

   
   
   

   I think you're way off base on the Neuheisel thing. He asked his compliance officer and was told it was ok. Turns out it wasn't. How is that his fault?

2.  Robert Knodell said:

   posted on October 20, 2004 9:13 PM — 12.215.232.213 — link — abuse?

   
   
   

   I think liability fears may be driving the boat for the NCAA in this thing, Pete. Neuheisel already has a wrongful termination suit against UW and some documents pretty damning to the school on his side. If the NCAA sanctioned or slapped a "show-cause" penalty on Rick, guess who'd get sued next?

   The NCAA already has the Ronnie Cottrell/Ivy Williams case to contend with, and I don't think the want to see those floodgates open any further right now. They knew they can slap the schools, and the schools will do very little to fight them in any meaningful way. After all, at the end of the day the colleges WANT to get back in the good graces of the NCAA as quickly as possible because they are the only game in town, a monopoly, purveyor of the big money, etc.

   Remember this: the lack of institutional control citation was a lot easier to issue because the main parties (the president, the AD, and the compliance office) are all long gone. Typical NCAA justice: hollow and self-serving.

3.  john ludwig said:

   posted on October 21, 2004 2:27 PM — 64.3.228.139 — link — abuse?

   
   
   

   no one believes that rick actually knew about the memo from the compliance officer before he was caught. he was lucky to find the memo after he was caught and used it as a defense, but he didn't base his betting actions on this memo. and i am pretty sure that the compliance officer was thinking about $5 pools, not $10,000 pools. at best, rick demonstrated incredibly poor judgement.

4.  Pete Holiday said:

   posted on October 21, 2004 3:58 PM — 209.16.242.81 — link — abuse?

   
   
   

   Bottom line is that what he did was against the rules... ignorance of the rules is no excuse, and assurance that something is not against the rules is ALSO no excuse. The rules are publicly available and any reasonable person would take a look at that $10,000 pool and think "Hmmm... maybe I ought to double-check that this isn't going to get me in trouble."

   Hiding behind the compliance officer doesn't fly. If your attorney tells you that it's legal to kill someone, do you get a slap on the wrist when you go commit murder? No. You go to jail.

   No difference here. Ignorance is no excuse.

5.  dave frey said:

   posted on October 21, 2004 4:38 PM — 65.116.13.197 — link — abuse?

   
   
   

   John- I believe it, because I've seen no evidence to the contrary. Do you have some?

   Pete:

   "assurance that something is not against the rules is ALSO no excuse."

   Assurance by the person whose job it is to give such assurances seems like a pretty damned good excuse to me. If you can't rely on your compliance officer for clarification, who the hell are you supposed to rely on?

   "If your attorney tells you that it's legal to kill someone, do you get a slap on the wrist when you go commit murder? "
   Apples and oranges. First off, all reasonable people know murder is unambiguously illegal. There was, on the other hand, apparently some ambiguity about the betting pool. He went to the person he was supposed to ask under the organizational structure and procedures of his employer. He did exactly what he was supposed to do and reasonably relied on that person's guidance.

   A more reasonable analogy would be on a less cut-and-dry topic. Perhaps asking your company's legal counsel about some obscure accounting regulation and getting bad advice. How can the staff level accountant be held responsible? He asked the person he was supposed to ask and followed their advice.

   You've apparently got some beef with Neuheisel, probably related to the way he left his previous job to take the UW job. I didn't care much for that either, frankly. But I'm having a hard time blaming him for this one.

6.  Pete Holiday said:

   posted on October 21, 2004 6:36 PM — 68.62.114.241 — link — abuse?

   
   
   

   You're probably right about the likelihood of the analogy but when you created the new one you didn't answer the question that went along with the other.

   Would the man get a free pass because the lawyer said it was ok? No, he'd still get punished because he still broke the law. The same holds here.

   I have no beef with Neuheisel -- I don't think that betting on other sports should be against the rules, I think it's stupid that the NCAA is legislating it, but that doesn't mean that they didn't, and it doesn't make what he did Ok.

   All I want is for the NCAA to have as few rules as is absolutely necessary and enforce every last one of them fully. If there's a rule, it ought to be either enforced universally or amended/rescinded. Period.

   "You do the crime, you do the time... regardless of what the compliance officer told you."

7.  john ludwig said:

   posted on October 21, 2004 7:26 PM — 24.16.113.68 — link — abuse?

   
   
   

   rick's behaviour the day he was confronted doesn't indicate he knew about the memo at that point. in the first two meetings that day he denied participating in the pool; only in the third meeting did he admit it. he didn't raise the memo defense until several days later. if he knew about the memo beforehand, why did he not raise that as the defense immediately -- why did he compound his mistake by lying? the only rational explanation is that he did not know about the memo at that point.

8.  dave frey said:

   posted on October 22, 2004 12:27 PM — 65.116.13.247 — link — abuse?

   
   
   

   "Would the man get a free pass because the lawyer said it was ok? No, he'd still get punished because he still broke the law. The same holds here. "

   Actually I'm not sure that's true. Most likely the person who gave the advice would be terminated or sanctioned, but the person who, in good faith. took the advice of a person whom it was reasonable to rely on, probably would not be found guilty in court. There's a "reasonable man" standard in our legal system. It is "reasonable" for an employee to rely on the advice of his company's legal counsel, and likewise "reasonable" for a university's employee to rely on the advice of that university's compliance officer. Absent evidence that Neuheisel KNEW the compliance officer was wrong, the NCAA made the right decision in not holding him responsible.

   Let's take another example. I want to build a new commercial building in my area. There are local ordinances about building height, square footage, brick colors, and distance from the highway. I take my building plans to the city's building regulation office for review and say "here's what I plan to build. is this ok?". They send me a letter a week later saying "we have reviewed your plans and your building complies with all ordinances. go ahead and build it." 6 months later, someone complains about my building and it turns out that it violates some obscure code and I might owe a $50,000 fine. When I show up in court, I'm going to show the judge my letter from the building regulation office, and he's going to say "you made a reasonable effort to find out if you were in compliance and you reasonably relied on what you were told. no fine." He may also say "you need to modify your building to meet code" or "don't build another building like that", but he's almost certainly not going to fine me.

   I dont really see a difference with Neuheisel's situation.

9.  Pete Holiday said:

   posted on October 22, 2004 12:45 PM — 209.16.242.81 — link — abuse?

   
   
   

   Trying to scamper out from underneath the fact that someone violating the law will be found guilty regardless of their knowledge of said law isn't going to fly. The "reasonable person" standard doesn't excuse people from following the law regardless of who told them it was ok.

   As to your new analogy, there's a HUGE difference between it and Newheisel's situation: the city's building regulation office is an AUTHORITY. Neuheisel didn't ask the NCAA if the betting pool was legal, he asked a compliance officer who is not an authority.

   There's one more flawed aspect to these legal comparisons that doesn't favor Neuheisel: if an attorney advises a client to do something illegal, there can be *serious* consequences.

   If a compliance officer advises a coach that something is ok to do when it's not, about the only thing that can be done is firing the compliance officer. The NCAA, thank goodness, does not have the reach or power that the Government does and, as such, lacks the power to really enforce rules on compliance officers.

   The bottom line is STILL that Neuheisel broke the rules and if we don't punish the rule-breakers, they're going to keep doing it.

   Of course, all of this is made moot unless there's evidence to contradict John's point that Neuheisel was probably not at all concerned about the compliance of his actions until after the fact.

10.  dave frey said:

    posted on October 22, 2004 2:50 PM — 65.116.13.247 — link — abuse?

    
    
    

    There was no intent to break any rules. In fact, there's ample evidence-- namely his asking the compliance officer if it was ok-- that his specific intent was to NOT break any rules. If he didn't care, why did he ask? Anyway, to stick to the legal analogy, at worst he's guilty of recklessness or negligence, not the deliberate and willful commission of a crime. And given that he asked a source that can be reasonably relied on, it's hard to say he neglected his duty. (and what's this business about his compliance officer not being an authority on compliance?) Sorry, still not convinced he did anything wrong.

11.  Pete Holiday said:

    posted on October 22, 2004 3:10 PM — 209.16.242.81 — link — abuse?

    
    
    

    Dave, you're dreaming. I'm not sure WHY, but you seem to want to ignore the fact that his actions were contrary to the rules of the NCAA. It doesn't matter who told him otherwise, they were still against the rules.

    You can pretend otherwise, you can wish it weren't, but pretending and wishing doesn't make something so. He broke the rules, and the NCAA gave him a pass.

    Furthermore, in only one sense of the word are compliance officers "authorities" -- in that they SHOULD have a firm command of rules and compliance. That is a much different kind of "authority" than the NCAA is. A quick glance at a dictionary entry for authority will demonstrate this aptly. Defns 1-3 (could) apply to the NCAA, but could not apply to a compliance officer. Defn 4 applies to both.

    A point to note here, is that while you might be able to call a compliance officer "an authority" the fact of the matter is that the compliance officers do not have any "authority."

    (PS: You're still ignoring John's comment -- why is that?)